http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-rev ... 17498.html

Friday, January 27, 2006

Party operatives will defend the Republican National Committee's endorsement of President Bush's "guest-worker" proposal with an incredulous, "Well, what did you expect? The president is the titular head of the GOP and the RNC's job is to promote its boss's agenda."
True enough. But more's the pity considering what the party apparatchiks have rubber-stamped -- amnesty for illegal immigrants.

"Bush aides and senior Republican strategists say that taking a hard-line stance against illegal immigration risks alienating Latino voters ... ," the Los Angeles Times reports.

Never mind the risk to the party base that knows a shameless pander when it sees it and, if history repeats itself, knows the American people will be left holding the bag for a policy that repeatedly has failed.

No matter how one slices, dices or juliennes it, Mr. Bush's plan is amnesty. It rewards those who have broken the law. It creates a climate that only will encourage more lawlessness. The record is abundantly clear that such programs not only accelerate the flow of illegals into the United States but also stifle productivity and growth.

Or as Philip Martin of the University of California-Davis and Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation argued in the November/December 2001 issue of Foreign Affairs:

"In many countries, under many types of government, and across many time periods, experiences with guest-worker programs have led to an overwhelming and simple consensus among those who have studied the issue: There is nothing more permanent than temporary workers."

President Bush's "guest-worker" program is as sadly misguided as is the Republican National Committee's endorsement of it. It will result in exactly the opposite of what its proponents claim. And that's a decidedly liberal affliction that has no place in the Republican Party or the republic at large.