A Bill That Will Not Die

Fire of Liberty

I know that the Senate leadership and President Bush want a grand bill to point to to say that the secured the borders while keeping America going by having a work force to do "jobs that American won't do" but the American people aren't happy to see another set of laws being passed when the government won't enforce the current immigration laws that they have on the books. Now while I was excited(As well as a lot of folks in the US) that the McCain/Kennedy "amnesty" bill failed to muster enough votes for cloture, I began to notice that while the Senators were dismayed at the bill failing a second cloture vote they were still optimistic about passing the bill before this fall. I'd say that Professor George Borjas made the most apt observation of the Senate's shear determination in passing the bill when he noted:

Before pouring the champagne, the opposition needs to realize that the bill, though badly battered, is still not dead. The ideas and forces represented therein are like the villain from a bad horror movie that will not die even when a stake is driven through its heart (for some reason, the grand bargain reminds me of Samara from The Ring). The thirst for cheap labor continues unabated and that alone is enough to keep this issue alive.

After watching the various Sunday shows and seeing members of the Bush administration and the Senate talking about how the bill was still alive, I'm guessing that opponents of the bill are going we have a long Summer.