Chuck Schumer suggests immigration law layaway plan to fix Obama trust deficit

Chuck Schumer suggests immigration law layaway plan to fix Obama trust deficit

Feb. 9, 2014, speaking to David Gregory on NBC’s Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggested if Republicans don’t trust Obama, they could pass an immigration reform bill now, but make it effective in 2017 after Obama left office.

Passing the law now, apparently for Schumer, would be a good-faith down payment. However the full bill “implementation” wouldn’t come due until 2017. Schumer denied that there was any reason for Republicans to distrust the president.

He tossed out his suggestion, almost as a from-the-top-of-his-head thought, saying:

All three, or many of the Republicans have said the following, Speaker Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, even Jim DeMint, they have said they want to do immigration reform, but they don’t trust the president to enforce the law, particularly the enforcement parts. So there’s a simple solution. Let’s enact a law this year, but simply not let it actually start till 2017, after President Obama’s term is over. Now I think the rap against him, that he won’t enforce the law is false … This view that we can get this done in 2015, ’16 is false. You’ll have the Republican presidential primary to pull people over to the right, Tea Party maximizes. So it’s simple. Let’s say to our Republican colleagues, “You don’t trust Obama, enact the law, but put it into effect in 2017.

At almost the same time, as Schumer was proposing his solution, over on “Fox News Sunday,” radio talk show host Laura Ingraham was single-handedly maximizing the voice of the Tea Party. It was Laura against three, or four, if an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal giving Republican cover for passing a law counts.

For Laura, the immigration reform debate for all politicians should live or die on one basic Tea Party question: “Do you care about American workers at all and their jobs and their wages, and their dreams?”

According to the article, “Laura Ingraham battles WSJ, Wills, Williams and Wallace on immigration reform,” George Wills was willing to carry the water for the Democrats, President Obama, and all the Republicans who are desperately trying to find a way to win the favor of big business by doing reform.

Wills said, “The problem here, is, Republican political imperatives are pretty clear and in my judgment, this will horrify Laura, diametrically opposed to the national interest, which is in considerable more immigration.”

A Drudge report editor, Charles Hurt, recently questioned why conservatives, such as Wills, were so focused on immigration, tweeting, “Immigration currently polls 2 or 3%. Why is GOP making it top priority?”

Hurt also asked:

Why have these Republican leaders suddenly become seized with the illegal desire to make an illegal grand bargain with Democrats in Congress to grant illegal amnesty to some 12 million illegal aliens residing illegally in our country right now?

Schumer’s solution evokes thoughts of placing a law on a layaway plan. Although layaway is a sometimes an economically sound solution for a thrift-conscious family, it remains to be seen if it is a good political solution to pesky stand-off on immigration reform. This layaway plan would allow the president to see the merchandise plus the plan would have a no-return clause in the contract.

A recent national poll showed President Obama running a deficit in trust with American voters. Forty-nine percent of those polled found he was not trustworthy nor honest. Would American voters trust him not to jump start or alter an immigration bill with “his pen” if a bill was passed now?

Devonia Smith

Devonia Smith

Devonia Smith doesn't remember life before her passion for politics. Tucked away in her trove of political memorabilia, she has a napkin from Air Force One (she hopes Reagan wiped his mouth on it) plus a second-grade photo of Governor Rick Perry. She also writes for Examiner.com.

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