Congress can’t do anything right…

“If we don’t win this battle today, we’ll attach [the legislation] to another bill and win the war.” — North Dakota GOP Sen. John Hoeven

This quote is in regards to a vote on a bill to approve the Keystone pipeline. Why don’t I believe him? Because Republicans just finished a “battle” to stop Obama’s immigration actions and not only did they lose, but they gave up. The language was tied to a Homeland Security funding bill and they gave up. The immigration actions relate directly to homeland security AND the department would have continued to operate without approved funding, but they still decided to give up. That is why I have absolutely no faith I the Republicans to pass the Keystone bill.

h/t http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/03/04/gop-senate-fails-to-get-enough-votes-to-override-obama-keystone-veto-says-fight/

Maine is on the right track with illegal immigration.

According to an article from Top Right News, Maine Governor Paul LePage has decided to cut funds to cities that give aid to illegal immigrants. I mostly agree with this decision, especially given the number of cities that have decided to ignore state and federal laws that they refuse to follow. I have a couple of problems with this whole thing though.

For one, we all know how local governments will handle this. Instead of fixing the problem, they’ll continue to fund the activities of those who are here illegally and cut funding for the activities they should actually be funding. The second issue is that I don’t believe states should be funding cities just as I don’t believe the federal governments should be funding local and state governments. A government should be supported by its constituents, not by everyone else. For example, citizens of Springfield should be funding projects within Springfield instead of all Missourians doing so. It makes no sense for others to pay for our projects.

If the latter of the two were fixed, I believe we’d have fewer issues with the former because they’d purely be supporting their activities with their own money. Once the citizens can see how much of their own money is used to support illegal activities, they’d demand changes in their governments.