Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Spitzer withdraws Licenses-for-Illegals plan

After weeks of combat for himself and weeks of derision for Hillary Clinton for seeming to support the plan, Elliot Spitzer has withdrawn his controversial bill to grant driver's licenses to illegal aliens. He refuses to see this as a defeat, and still believes that some kind of program is essential to provide New York with safe roads. I find this particular quote most disingenuous.

"What we are trying to do, first of all, is address a problem that the federal government has created, which is that there are one million people here in New York state alone who are not here with proper documentation," he said.

"We want security. We want our roads to be safe, which is the initial impetus behind letting them get a license so we know who they are, where they are. They can get insurance, everybody is safer."
(Emphasis is mine.) Because it ignores the simple fact that for decades New York (along with most other large states) has refused to report illegal aliens to the Federal Government when they are discovered. This is like blaming your landlord for a mouse in the house, and then refusing to let them put down traps, poison, or get a cat.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Im glad I'm not the only one who noticed that. And he expects big federal govt to be responsible for cleaning up the illegals. And then to say that its for "safety" and they can buy insurance. These people are breaking the law already, do you think they will care about uying insurance ?

Sean said...

This is an angle that all the Dems have been trying to pull as of late. "Because GWB didn't create serious immigration reform, we need to resort to these crappy plans." I find it most disturbing when those Dems that are running for president and are members of Congress say this. It was the congress that prevented the major bill (for better or for worse) from passing. Heaven knows GWB would have signed it.

It's completely stupid when states - especially ones that are doing nothing about the problem - expect the fed to do everything for them. But alas this is the philosophical divide between liberals and conservatives - do you trust the fed or the states.