The Great Smoky Mountain Journal

OUR VIEW

Posted: Tuesday, January 01, 2019 02:43 PM

OUR VIEW: Smoke Up Johnny Liberals, There's Going To Be A Citizenship Question On The 2020 Census Form Like It Or Not

Such is the case this week when liberals grew outraged over the Trump administration’s decision to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census. The query, they say, may deter some people who are in the country illegally from participating in the decennial headcount. So what?

The last time I checked we the American people who are citizens of the greatest nation on the face of the Earth do not answer to those who are law breakers, criminals and in some cases murderers, rapists, thugs and crooks. Now I got your attention, let's proceed with some cold hard Great Smoky Mountain Journal talk about why the citizenship question shouldn't even be up for debate.

The census provides the data for how hundreds of billions of dollars in federal program funds are distributed, and also determines how many seats each state has in the House of Representatives, as well as how many Electoral College votes go to each state. None of those questions should be influenced by the presence of undocumented people. NONE! Can I say it a third time. NONE!!!

People who are not citizens are not allowed to vote. So why should they be given representation in Congress? Should Arizona get more seats in the House because it has a large population of undocumented people, giving it more clout than Maine, for instance, that has few?

No, it should not. But it does now to our nation's eternal shame in not enforcing existing immigration laws.

State leaders are increasingly choosing to allow a large portion of their populations to be people who have entered the country illegally.

California, most conspicuously, has made that choice, granting sanctuary to illegal residents and granting such people numerous benefits and rights. As a consequence, the state is home to about 2.5 million illegal aliens, making up about 6 percent of California’s population.

However, the inhabitants of other states that do not chose to underwrite a large illegal alien population should not be penalized by the self-interested political decisions made by California’s Democratic leaders.

People who are in the country illegally are not supposed to receive food stamps, Medicaid or other federal assistance – but many do. A large number of families headed by undocumented people actually are on welfare, receiving those benefits through their U.S.-born citizen children.

The most recent “survey of income and program participation” from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that 62 percent of households headed by illegal aliens are receiving federal welfare, more than twice the percentage for households headed by native-born Americans.

Many households without children also access welfare benefits through fraud or by accessing programs open to all residents of the country, like Emergency Medicaid. That program pays for hospital care and, in some states, long-term treatment like chemotherapy.

On the New York City Emergency Medicaid website, it advertises that the program “helps eligible, undocumented and temporary immigrant New Yorkers pay for medical costs when they have an emergency.” Emergencies include dialysis, giving birth and chronic pain.

Though it may sound harsh, this was not how the system was meant to work. Of course, for humanitarian reasons we need to treat anyone within our borders who is desperately ill. But as we face trillion-dollar deficits going forward, the U.S. must confront its spiraling entitlement and health care costs. Medicaid, a program that has grown way beyond its original intent, would be a good place to start.

This is not the first time a census has made political waves. In preparing for the 2010 census, President Obama organized his campaign coalition to help guarantee a fuller count of minority and illegal communities. He demanded nearly $1 billion of stimulus funds to pay community groups like the disgraced ACORN (which was finally dumped from the roster) to help with the headcount.

The upshot was an increase in House seats allocated to districts heavily populated by minorities and undocumented people – districts that just happen to mainly vote Democratic.

For instance, blue state California picked up five representatives. At the time, an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal noted that eliminating non-citizens could cost California a total of nine House seats by the end of the decade.

So let's be clear about the liberal's outrage in America over the citizenship question. It's not about some bull______________ concern that some people may or may not want to participate. This is about votes people, strictly votes, and 100% politics.

The stakes are high and the Dems know it. They know that if you take the illegal aliens that do these despicable things their power base is all but gone even in the Blue la la land California.

This accounts for some of the hyperventilating on the issue of including the citizenship question in Census 2020. Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the inclusion of the question “a direct attack on our representative democracy.” As the current head of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, he knows his party has much to lose. Holder shouldn't use words like "democracy" that he himself doesn't understand considering his unethical and downright criminal behavior while attorney general under Obama. He needs to be tweeting in an orange jump suit behind bars in a padded cell.

President Trump’s Justice Department has justified the insertion of the citizenship question by saying it would help enforce the Voting Rights Act. That would seem to be a good thing. But critics of the administration’s decision say the real impact would be to undercount illegals who might be scared to acknowledge their lack of citizenship.

The liberal's argument is undercut, as most liberal arguments are, by the results of the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), which each year asks some 3.5 million households questions about citizenship status, place of birth and year of arrival. The Current Population Survey and other federal studies used to estimate employment levels ask similar questions.

Approximately 2.1 percent of households refuse to participate in the ACS; in states like Texas and California that have large undocumented populations the figure rises to 2 percent to 3 percent.

In other words, there is not a huge difference in states that have large unauthorized populations.

In any event, we should not care. The Founders of our nation did not envision a country containing 11 or 12 million undocumented people. Nor did they envision that population determining either fiscal or political representation.

In Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution, they wrote: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers….” They excluded “Indians” from the tally, describing them as “not taxed.” In that era, not taxed meant not a legal citizen. We should follow the same guideline today.

So as my dear brother tells me when things don't go as planned sometime I say to the liberals having the squirts in their pants again over President Donald J. Trump, "smoke up Johnny." Let California sue all it wants and let their Attorney General play the fool that he is. This is going to happen and there's going to be change in the landscape of power because of it. It's been too long coming and all I can say is let the chips fall where they may.

We're a nation of laws and its damn time we start acting like it and not be beholden to law breakers. They have no say at the table on this one even though those who carry their water in Sacramento and in the halls of the Democratic National Convention believe so. We'll see.

Christopher McDonald, Publisher, Editor in Charge

Great Smoky Mountain Journal