Friend me, Jeff Denham

By Steve Taylor

November 7, 2013
The Modesto Bee

I really hope Congressman Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, accepts my “friend” request on Facebook because I’m going to need a passel of accommodating lawmaking buddies over the next few years to give outlaws like me the same deal they’re going to give illegal aliens in H.R. 15, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.

The resolution he co-sponsored last month makes the “over 11 million undocumented individuals living within our borders” fill out some papers every few years, learn a few English phrases, then live and work like nothing happened.

In the spirit of friendship, I’ve dropped my objections and now embrace Denham’s arguments because I want to expand them to my own future crimes. You know the arguments: The undocumented are doing the work no one else wants. They only broke our laws to make a better life for themselves. We’re breaking up families. We’re a nation of immigrants. All are perfectly acceptable reasons to ignore our border rules because we know how hard it is to find a citizen who’ll drive a dusty almond shaker all day for $9 an hour, cash.

Here’s my play: As soon as illegal aliens are legal, I plan on not paying income taxes. I work with kids with serious problems as a sole proprietor of a small business, a job most citizens refuse to do. But understand I’ll only be withholding my quarterly payments to the IRS to make a better life for my family. The comprehensive immigration overhaul plan has fines for the undocumented to pay, just as the IRS will have for me a few weeks after my checks stop coming. When our undocumented guests and I don’t pay, I’m going to need you to draft a new resolution called the Tax Modernization Act of 2014 or you’ll be breaking up families just like the “broken” system you talk so much about, Congressman.

We’re not only a nation of immigrants, we are first a nation of tax revolutionists. I don’t know if anyone hanged for the Boston Tea Party, but we now hold those brave men up as heroes. They chanced the gallows rather than live with the fetid unfairness of two different expectation systems. Our collective national unconscious whispers something like this: They’re poor illegal aliens and can’t help it, so we must accommodate. Americans should know better, so here’s your higher standard. No mas. I want the laws changed to favor us once we tax cheats – I mean “withholders” – reach a critical mass in the United States.

Or here’s a better idea: We treat everyone equally under the law, regardless of numbers.

Politics is all about doing favors, so I’ll start with a picture I see on your page on the steps of the Capitol, Congressman Denham. I see three young people with odd expressions in the lower righthand corner who aren’t dressed like the other eighth-graders visiting you there in D.C., in early October. I’m concerned you were photobombed, sir, and want to caution you about letting people into your photos at the last minute. Through my work, I know the younger set takes no end of joy from sliding into stranger’s pictures, clowning and leaving chaos as everyone in the frame later tries to name the individuals.

Now you owe me, Congressman.

http://www.modbee.com/2013/11/07/301...ff-denham.html