I'm thrilled to hear the anti-executive-amnesty rhetoric coming from most major leaders in the Republican Party.
But none of those outbursts against Pres. Obama's promised unilateral action will help American workers one bit if Speaker Boehner moves a long-term spending bill to the floor of the House over the next few weeks.
At this moment, Boehner and Senate Minority Leader McConnell are both extolling the virtues of passing a long-term spending bill that would take away from the new Congress the power of the purse to affect much of anything until next October. And, for all practical considerations, a long-term spending bill would ensure that Pres. Obama could give millions more illegal aliens the ability to compete directly with American workers without any way for the new Congress to stop it.
The key message to your Members of Congress when you start phoning them as soon as Congress arrives back in the Capitol on Wednesday morning should be:
HAPPY VETERANS DAY. PLEASE HONOR ALL WHO HAVE SERVED OUR COUNTRY IN UNIFORM BY JOINING IN THIS BATTLE
Will you please join the citizen army over the next 10 days and serve with distinction? www.NumbersUSA.com/actionbuffet
We need to impress upon our Members of Congress that they must leave on Thanksgiving vacation without passing an OMNIBUS SPENDING BILL.
Why?
Theoretically, the House of Representatives could start the omnibus spending bill with a provision prohibiting any money be used for an executive amnesty.
But Senate Majority Leader Reid has shown in the past that he won't bring up a bill like that. He is likely to force a shutdown of the government rather than accept defunding language, but the House would probably get blamed.
As long as Reid and his Democratic colleagues are in the majority in the Senate (only through December), we cannot hope to get any spending bill to Pres. Obama's desk if it includes any defunding language.
That means a short-term spending bill also could not get to the President's desk with defunding language.
But a short-term spending bill would require the new Congress to pass another spending bill early next year. Reid would no longer be in charge of the Senate. It is assumed that the next spending bill would have defunding language in it and would go to Pres. Obama's desk.
At that point, it would be the President and not any chamber of Congress who would have a choice of signing or shutting down the government.
ROY BECK is President & Founder of NumbersUSA
