Some Republicans intend on helping Obama’s immigration executive orders . . .

• Republican Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers’ (R-KY) preposterous pleading of  helplessness to stop funding Obama’s schemes
• Iowa’s Congressman King challenges the notion
• Congressional Research Service sustains King and the power of the purpose
  

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Consider first the plain language of the United States Constitution

Article. I.
Section. 8.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;  . . .
Section. 9.
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law;  . . .

Chamber of Commerce sock puppets doing their damnedest

Eight days ago, on November 19th,  the House Republican Conference elected Congressman Hal Rogers to a third term as Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations.

Consider what Rogers said the next day as reported by Rebecca Shabad in The Hill :

It would be “impossible” to defund President Obama’s executive actions on immigration through a government spending bill, the House Appropriations Committee said Thursday.

In a statement released by Committee Chairman Hal Rogers’s (R-Ky.) office hours before Obama’s scheduled national address, the committee said the primary agency responsible for implementing Obama’s actions is funded entirely by user fees.

As a result, the committee said the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) agency would be able to continue to collect fees and carry out its operations even if the government shut down.

“This agency is entirely self-funded through the fees it collects on various immigration applications,” the committee said in a statement. “Congress does not appropriate funds for any of its operations, including the issuance of immigration status or work permits, with the exception of the ‘E-Verify’ program. Therefore, the appropriations process cannot be used to ‘defund’ the agency.” . . .

Rogers has been outspoken in arguing that Congress should pass an omnibus spending bill in the lame-duck Congress that would keep the government funded through September 2015 . . .

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who wants to defund the order, said he didn’t buy the argument from appropriators.

“I just don’t believe that,” he told reporters.

“They’re contriving red herring arguments to get to the point that enough members will walk out of this Congress and go home for Thanksgiving saying, ‘Well, there’s nothing we can do.’ “

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) also dismissed the argument and said lawmakers could attach language to an appropriations bill that would result in defunding the order.

King and Sessions are of course correct and this week their views were sustained by a report of the Congressional Research Service.  Josh Siegal writing for The Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal, reports:

. . . the Congressional Research Service concludes that Congress still must appropriate the funds received from fees if the money is to be spent lawfully.

The Daily Signal obtained a copy of the report, prepared for Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., ranking minority member of the Senate Budget Committee. It says:

Amounts received as fees by federal agencies must still be appropriated by Congress to that agency in order to be available for obligation or expenditure by the agency. In some cases, this appropriation is provided through the annual appropriations process. In other instances, it is an appropriation that has been enacted independently of the annual appropriations process (such as a permanent appropriation in an authorizing act). In either case, the funds available to the agency through fee collections would be subject to the same potential restrictions imposed by Congress on the use of its appropriations as any other type of appropriated funds.

Republican Chairman Rogers’ ridiculously contrived statement was in service to Republican establishment interests desiring cheap foreign labor at the expense of the citizen  tax payer funded safety net provided for low wage individuals and families. The millions of non-citizens that Obama intends to award protected status to would be eligible for components of that safety net including imposing on state finances for various benefits such as public education.  There is no sustainable multiplier effect to the sort of “economic activity,” extensive welfare eligible and dependent immigration produces.

We cannot be sure, but we hope that had Rogers’ report been exposed to the House Republican Conference prior to the vote to give him a third term as chairman of the committee, some members would have declined to reward such a Constitutional ignoramus and Chamber of Commerce sock-puppet.

R Mall

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