Dozen Democrats Plot To Go AWOL For Trump State Of Union, Host Leftist Pep Rally Instead
'People don’t want to be gaslit and belittled'
Two ‘I’ agencies, one Democratic double standard
Two three-letter agencies beginning with “I” show how differently Democrats view enforcement. When it comes to ICE, any enforcement is too much. When it comes to the IRS, no amount can be too much.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement administers U.S. immigration law. The Internal Revenue Service administers U.S. federal tax law. In neither case do these agencies make the law. Congress writes the laws, and the president signs them. The agencies simply enforce what has been enacted.
Democrats act as if illegal entry earns indefinite permission to stay. No one would tell tax evaders they can stop paying indefinitely.
Yet Democrats want to abolish ICE for enforcing immigration law and to bolster the IRS for enforcing tax law.
Consider the contrast. A growing chorus of Democrats now demands ICE be abolished, just as these Democrats called for defunding the police. Meanwhile, just months into his term, President Biden proposed doubling the size of the IRS, increasing its funding by $80 billion, and hiring 87,000 new IRS agents. Democrats delivered much of that in the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, with almost 60% of the nearly $80 billion aimed at audits.
ICE targets those breaking U.S. immigration law. Everyone with income is subject to IRS review, and many are audited. The first group is a subset of the population; the second is essentially the entire adult population. Democrats oppose scrutinizing noncitizens living here illegally, but they welcome more scrutiny of U.S. citizens.
The penalties differ just as sharply. The Department of Homeland Security currently offers to pay for a flight home and $2,600 for those in the country illegally who choose to self-deport. If they refuse and are found to be here illegally, ICE deports them. The duration of illegal presence does not add penalties. In fact, the longer someone has been here illegally, the more Democrats argue he should be allowed to stay.
The IRS treats duration very differently. Unpaid taxes accrue penalties and interest that multiply over time. The IRS can garnish wages and seize assets, including homes, cars, and businesses. It also has imprisonment in its arsenal.
Families factor in differently too. Democrats routinely argue that deportations are wrong because they hurt families. Yet IRS prosecution and punishment also hurt families, often severely, and that fact does not seem to trouble Democrats.
Intent is another difference. Many people here illegally know they are here illegally, and many fail to show for immigration hearings. By contrast, many tax problems begin as mistakes. Yet the money is still owed, and the IRS will move to collect when it discovers the error.
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Democrats also argue that illegal immigrants bolster the economy because they work and add value to GDP, even if they are not paying taxes. But the same is true of someone who evades taxes: He works, adds value, and withholds what he owes.
No one argues that tax evaders should be left alone. They broke the law. If they did so deliberately, they deserve little sympathy. Allowing tax dodging encourages more of it.
Yet Democrats say almost exactly the opposite about those who break immigration law, including those who break other U.S. laws as well. They have gone to great lengths to defend them, even traveling to El Salvador in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an accused gang member and human trafficker.
Democrats act as if illegal entry earns indefinite permission to stay. No one would tell tax evaders they can stop paying indefinitely.
Imagine sanctuary jurisdictions shielding taxpayers from the IRS. Imagine local authorities refusing to cooperate with federal tax collectors. Imagine Republicans storming federal prisons holding those convicted of tax fraud. Imagine conservatives building databases to track IRS agents. The backlash would be immediate and rightly so.
Tax evasion is not treated as a persuasive argument about tax policy. Illegal immigration, however, gets treated by Democrats and the establishment press as if lawbreaking itself settles the immigration debate.
On enforcement, Democrats apply two standards: one for immigration law and one for tax law. That is what hypocrisy looks like.
Poll Finds Majority Of Americans Concerned About Noncitizens Voting
The poll showing 55% of likely voters believe there are noncitizens on their voter rolls arrives as the SAVE America Act hits the Senate.Running out the clock won’t save the majority
In the first three months of the Trump administration, Americans were stunned by President Trump’s breakneck pace: executive orders overturning onerous Biden-era regulations, massive reductions in force, and rescissions eliminating billions in waste. Republicans notched some of their highest approval ratings in months. Democrats looked rudderless.
For the first time in years, it felt like Republicans were taking the country back — unapologetically.
The task remains what it was 365 days ago: Save the country, secure future elections, and restore the American dream.
Fast-forward a year, and the public mood has turned bleak. A recent Fox News poll found that 52% of voters would support the Democrat candidates in their House districts this November — reportedly the highest level of support for either party since 2017. More jarring: Voters favor Democrats by 14 points on affordability and helping the middle class and by 21 points on health care.
President Trump’s worries about the midterms, typical swings aside, look justified.
But plenty of time remains, enough to change the trajectory — if Republicans are willing to spend time and effort instead of conserving both.
The problem sits in the mirror. Despite ample runway to tee up major legislation through a second round of reconciliation — the tool Republicans can use to deliver big wins without a single Democratic vote in the Senate — too many lawmakers have acted as if the moment already passed.
The Republican Study Committee produced a blueprint aimed at making the American dream affordable again by tackling the same pressures families feel every day: rising costs, rising premiums, and a fading path to home ownership for younger Americans.
Yet too many Republicans have decided to run on last year’s accomplishments in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, hoping “tax cuts” can substitute for finishing the America First agenda.
Voters aren’t buying it — and they have reasons.
Spending and priorities
Just days ago, 76 House Republicans joined Democrats to pass a consolidated appropriations package that included millions in earmarks for clinics providing "gender-affirming care" and $5 billion for refugee resettlement — while declining chances to strip the bill of the pork Republicans claim to oppose.
Days before that, 46 Republicans voted against an amendment to defund rogue activist judge James Boasberg’s office. Eighty-one Republicans voted against an amendment to defund the National Endowment for Democracy — which, contrary to its name, functions as a rogue CIA cutout that fuels global censorship and domestic propaganda.
While basic conservative principles get betrayed in plain sight, Senate Republicans too often hide the ball, using procedure as an excuse for inaction.
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The Senate can act
Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy’s Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act and the new SAVE America Act have passed the House a combined three times. Lawmakers and pundits insist it’s a nonstarter in the Senate. Passing it, they say, would require “nuking the filibuster” — a risky move when 51 votes for major conservative policy cannot be taken for granted.
But to voters, it looks like business as usual: elected officials trying to save their seats rather than save their country.
And voters are right.
Contrary to the lazy narrative, enforcing a talking filibuster does not eliminate the filibuster.
The talking filibuster has been permitted under Senate rules since 1806 and served for more than a century as the primary way to delay or block a vote. Cloture came later. Today, the minority can simply signal its intent to filibuster, triggering a 60-vote threshold to invoke cloture, end debate, and move to final passage by simple majority.
Enforcing a talking filibuster on the SAVE America Act would not change Senate rules or eliminate the minority’s right to filibuster. It would require the majority leader to keep the bill on the floor — and force the minority to sustain a real filibuster as long as the majority maintains a quorum.
Time and effort stand between us and an immensely popular voter ID law.
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Finish the job
Out-of-control spending keeps burying families in debt and shrinking what their dollars buy. Between backroom deals and broad inaction, politicians seem to be counting the days until a Democrat House returns with subpoenas and impeachment resolutions. The status quo won’t cut it.
The task remains what it was 365 days ago: Save the country, secure future elections, and restore the American dream.
No one believes the job is finished, so stop pretending it is. With months left before November, members of Congress need to prove why voters should keep them in office. Only a dogged push to finish the America First agenda will do.
Republicans and Democrats are in revolt — for very different reasons
America’s 250th anniversary is defined by one undeniable fact: Both sides of the aisle are in open revolt against elites. Nothing would make the founders more proud. They created this country through their own act of rebellion against an out-of-touch ruling class. But it’s far from clear whether today’s elites will be fully defeated — or if the country is doomed to suffer under another self-serving class.
Only one of these revolts will ultimately be good for the American people — and the wrong one has the momentum.
On the right, at least, the revolt has been under way for a decade. Before 2016, Republican voters had repeatedly backed go-along-to-get-along politicians — the Romneys, McCains, and Bushes of the world. In return, they got mountains of debt and deficit spending, multiple unwinnable wars, and massive expansions in the size and power of government. Rather than clean up the country’s messes, the GOP elite made them worse.
Out of sheer frustration, Republicans turned against their ruling class, throwing their support behind Donald Trump. He has since demolished the GOP establishment. While the Trump revolution is still under way in policy, on the political front, it’s over. The old Republican elite is never coming back.
Then there’s the open revolt on the left. Like the frustrated Republicans of a decade ago, today’s Democrats are furious at their elected officials for the lack of change. But whereas the right is fighting to return quintessential American values to the fore, these leftists want to ditch those values altogether. Their vision can be summed up in one word: socialism.
Hence the stunning victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York City, the rising star of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Congress, and socialist candidates in congressional primaries. And hence the deluge of socialist activists coming out of college campuses. They’re sick and tired of Democrat elites who don’t do anything with their power. They’re determined to seize that power for themselves.
Say this for the current anti-elite moment: It’s beautifully American. Both the right and left are breathing new life into our national ideal of sovereignty, which holds that the people are ultimately in control. It’s good to remind ourselves — and our would-be rulers — that we the people are still in charge.
But not all revolts are created equal. Despite their superficial similarity, the Republican and Democrat visions are diametrically opposed and fundamentally incompatible. At the end of the day, the right is trying to permanently give power back to the people. The left, on the other hand, is setting the stage to create a permanent — and much worse — ruling class.
The difference between these two revolts is clear in the kinds of policies they back. On the right, Republicans from Donald Trump down are fighting to gut unelected bureaucracies, give families the funding to choose their children’s education, and slash red tape to unleash small businesses and job creation. Their immigration crackdown is also rooted in sovereignty, rolling back the blatant attempts to prop up ruling class power by bringing in foreign voters. On issue after issue, Republicans are taking power from elites and giving it to the people.
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The socialist wave is rushing in the opposite direction. Today’s leftists want government control over every facet of the economy, vast expansions of the welfare state, and unprecedented power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. As history attests, socialism creates a ruling class that runs roughshod over everyone else, since absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Only one of these revolts will ultimately be good for the American people — and the wrong one has the momentum. Democratic socialists are surging in local, state, and national elections, while Republicans are doubting themselves instead of doubling down on their agenda.
Republicans are also wondering if their revolt can survive once Trump leaves office. But they should be working to ensure that it does, rallying around leaders who will keep taking the fight to our would-be overlords. In this time of revolt, there’s no guarantee of who will win. But the same was true 250 years ago, at America’s birth. The battle then was very much between the revolutionaries who stood for the people and those who stood for the elites. The founders led their fellow Americans to cast off the shackles of that ruling class. Now Republicans must rally the people once again to ensure another 250 years of sovereignty and national success.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
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