The Republican Caucus at the Kennedy School
by Ray Martin on March 9, 2010 in Dems v. Reps, Opinion
At a time when our country is facing its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, it would be easy to give into xenophobia when it comes to the issue of illegal immigration. The nativist wing of my party, the Republican Party, would have you believe that there is something hugely alarming, that we need to be afraid of illegal immigration. The Republican Party and the United States would instead be better to reject the rants coming from the nativists and turn their ear to the great communicator, Ronald Reagan, who said the following at the 1986 re-dedication of the Statue of Liberty:
“I have always believed there was some divine providence that placed this great land here between the two great oceans, to be found by a special kind of people from every corner of the world, who had a special love for freedom and a special courage that enabled them to leave their own land, leave their friends and their countrymen, and come to this new and strange land to build a New World of peace and freedom and hope.”
President Reagan’s words were not just the empty rhetoric of a president reading off of a teleprompter hoping for a bounce in the polls. Instead, they were backed up by action when he signed the November 1986 Immigration Control and Reform Act that provided a path to citizenship for 2.6 million people. The Republican Party of 2010 would be wise to follow the words and actions of its most fabled president if it wants to remain relevant in future elections – the party will only be able to ride the mistakes of Barack Obama for so long.
The Latino vote will be instrumental in deciding upcoming elections and is a voting bloc that Republicans cannot afford to dismiss. Rather than advocating for the draconian round-ups and deportations advocated by the Minutemen and other fringe groups, Republicans should unite behind the immigration reforms advocated by former President George W. Bush. Providing a path to citizenship that favors skilled workers coupled with a fine that would ensure that no one would be allowed to flaunt the laws of the United States would help to protect America’s own vulnerable working class from the ills of illegal immigration.
In addition, a guest worker program along the lines of the 2007 bill would ensure that America would retain enough unskilled labor to avoid any adverse impacts on the agricultural industry. Such an immigration plan would also increase border security and help root out gang members and criminals from amongst our midst.
The benefits of adopting a Reagan-Bush immigration policy should be obvious to the party. By helping millions of Latinos gain citizenship, Republicans could draw many of these new citizens into the party. After all, it was only six years ago that President Bush captured 44 percent of the Latino vote during the 2004 election. This possible gain in the Latino vote would help to offset any loss from defections by nativists to the Tea Party movement or the Libertarian party.
A path to citizenship is consistent with Republican ideals. Upon signing the 1986 immigration bill, President Reagan said, “We have consistently supported a legalization program which is both generous to the alien and fair to the countless thousands of people throughout the world who seek legally to come to America. The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans.”
The sooner the Republican Party and the nation see that a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants is the only tenable immigration policy, the sooner our society can move towards being more open, inclusive, and true to our founding principles.
Obama and the State of our Union
by Ray Martin on February 10, 2010 in Opinion
A political party was in disarray. A Senate seat it had held for decades had just been lost to a political upstart in a huge upset. The American people were angry and turned on a party that only a short time before appeared to be on the precipice of creating a lasting governing majority.
The state was not Massachusetts and the year was not 2010, but it was Alaska in 2008. The permanent Republican majority that Karl Rove had promised was looking more like Roman ruins as Ted Stevens lost his seat amidst scandal. Just two years later, it is now the Democratic Party’s turn to squirm under the boot of a fickle public. It is now the Democratic Party’s turn to be humiliated by the loss of a long-held Senate seat, hampered by an unpopular president.
The fall from grace that President Obama and his party have experienced was on full display during his State of the Union address on January 27. Throughout his speech, the president tried to go back to the old Barack Obama, the Obama who had promised hope and bipartisanship. Yet, on this occasion, he was unable to fool the American public – subsequent opinion polls showed him gaining only one point in his approval ratings.
The president attempted to paint the GOP as the ‘party of no’ throughout his address. In particular, he chided the GOP Senate leadership, remarking, “Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership.” What is not leadership, Mr. Obama, is commenting to the Republican leadership that, “I won. So I think on that one, I trump you,” as he did in response to House Republican Whip Eric Cantor’s suggestions to stimulate the economy.
Saying “I won” and then proceeding to spend the first year of the 111th Congress barreling through an unpopular domestic agenda that is damaging to the country is not leadership but is instead Chicago-style politics at its best. In his remarks, the president failed to mention the numerous GOP suggestions for the stimulus bill – from tax deductions for some small businesses to making unemployment benefits tax free to a proposed provision that would let businesses losing money carry the losses over to pay fewer taxes in a different fiscal year.
The president also failed in his attempt to paint the GOP as the ‘party of no.’ The GOP offered numerous proposals for tort reform in their health care bills yet the president and his trial lawyer contributors ensured that significant tort reform along the lines called for by John Thune and others was never on the table when it came to fixing a broken healthcare system. By falsely labeling the GOP in the hopes of covering up his own flawed leadership skills, the president has left the GOP without any incentive to govern.
If the president is serious about changing the direction of the country and stopping the momentum of the GOP, he should take a page from the playbook of Bill Clinton strategist James Carville, who once said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” The president should not be focused on healthcare and adding trillions of dollars to an already swollen deficit – instead, he should be concentrating his efforts on providing jobs to the American people.
Instead of bringing up ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ or giving Nancy Pelosi millions of dollars for a marsh rat, the president should be focused on shoring up a broken economy. Instead of going to watch Georgetown beat Duke in college basketball, the president should be trying to figure out how to put more people back to work.
The first step in this effort must be for the president to abandon his war on the banks. If he wants Wall Street to loosen their wallets and to reinvest in America, he needs to first make America a friendly place for Wall Street to invest in. He needs to abandon the fiery anti-banking rhetoric of his State of the Union address and adopt a more job-friendly approach.
At a time when states like Oregon are engaging in class warfare by choosing to tax the wealthy, the president needs to eliminate the capital gains tax and do everything he can to encourage investment in the economy by the upper-middle class. Essentially, he must reverse the course of his administration to focus on the economy and the true needs of the American people if he has any hopes to keep his party in a majority position past November and if he wants to occupy the White House past 2012.
The Republican Caucus at Harvard Kennedy School
by Ray Martin on October 27, 2009 in Dems v. Reps, Opinion
The procurement of a nuclear bomb by Iran poses a threat to the continued existence of the State of Israel. The recent reports that Iran may be close to procuring nuclear arms have led the Israeli government to call the Iranian nuclear program an “existential threat.” A nuclear Iran is a threat to Israel in two ways.
First, Iran may carry out a direct nuclear attack on Israel. The Supreme Leaders of Iran — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei — have made no secret of their desire to destroy Israel. Ahmadinejad has said that “Israel must be wiped off the map,” while Khamenei has compared the State of Israel to a “cancer.” If Iran is allowed to procure nuclear arms, it will likely only be a matter of time before Iran uses those weapons against Israel. Iran already possesses the missile systems necessary to deliver such a nuclear attack.
Second, a nuclear Iran poses a threat to Israel given its capability to carry out an indirect attack by giving a nuclear bomb to one of its state-sponsored terrorist surrogates. Iran has connections to terrorist organizations that would allow it to easily deliver a covert nuclear attack on Israel. Iran has already sponsored Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in carrying out numerous terrorist attacks on Israel. These attacks have included suicide bombings, rocket attacks, and the 1992 attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aries. Furthermore, a nuclear Iran will give Iran’s terrorist allies a nuclear umbrella under which to operate, and will likely embolden these organizations to ratchet up their terrorist attacks against Israel, both nuclear and non-nuclear.
Consequently, the United States must prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms. The current administration’s use of dialog and engagement is unlikely to be effective. Diplomacy rarely works with dictators. The United States must instead wield a heavy hand to ensure the continued existence of the State of Israel.
Congress and the administration have pursued a path of economic sanctions, such as the newly- passed Iran Sanctions Enabling Act and the long-stalled Iran Petroleum Sanctions Act. While these sanctions are a step in the right direction, President Obama must call for and broker stern economic sanctions supported by the entire international community (in particular from Russia and China) if sanctions are to have any meaningful impact. Although the recent agreement to ship low enriched Iranian uranium to Russia is a step in the right direction, it is only a temporary stopgap. Tehran can replace the 2,600 pounds of uranium that it is giving up in less than a year.
To ensure Israel’s safety, President Obama must provide a timeline for Tehran to give up its nuclear program in its entirety. At the same time, the President must convince Israel to forego any preemptive attack on Iran before Iran has the chance to begin dismantling its nuclear program.
If economic sanctions fail, then President Obama must tell Iran’s leaders that he supports a preemptive Israeli strike against Iran. In my conversation with Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz, he articulated that President Obama has made a “terrible mistake in taking the military option off the table,” and that the President should “leave it up to Israel to determine its self defense.” By supporting a preemptive Israeli strike, President Obama will instill fear in Iran’s leaders over the possibility of war. Such a war would likely end with a regime change and the trial of the Iranian leaders, not in an international tribunal, but in an Israeli court of justice — much as did Adolf Eichmann in 1962. As Professor Dershowitz pointed out in 2006, “leaders, even religious leaders, fear imprisonment and death.”
The threat of a regime change in Iran, coupled with the fear of capital retribution, may be the only action that will make President Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah Khamenei give pause in their pursuit of aggression and terror towards Israel.
