Biden: 'Unless We Generate Consensus in America, We're in Trouble'
(CNSNews.com) - In a video conference with grassroots activists, hosted by the Democrat National Committee on Tuesday, President Joe Biden discussed the many ways his big government agenda will benefit Americans.
After making promise after promise (see below), Biden called for "civility" and "consensus" in politics.
"Well, I'm hoping...that we can get back to a place where there's more civility in politics," Biden said at the conclusion of the video chat.
I really mean it. And I've never seen it this way. You know, the Republicans who voted in the House of Representatives for the infrastructure bill, you've seen in the press, the reports that the other Republicans are trying to strip them of their standing in the Congress.
If they're a chairman of a committee, they're trying to strip them of that chairmanship. I've never seen it like this before. It's got to stop for the sake of America. I know I get in trouble when I talk about bipartisan. These people say, why the devil would I like any Republicans? Well, it's important. We are -- unless we generate consensus in America, we're in trouble.
And when the one thing we generate a consensus on, and then the very people who voted for it initially, because it looked like the Democrats were going to be given credit for something, are now being threatened with their chairmanships -- it's just not right. We're going to change it, though.
Biden did not say how he would change intra-party squabbles.
Thirteen House Republicans voted with most Democrats to pass part one of Biden's infrastructure package last week. But all Republicans oppose part two of Biden's plan, so there is no consensus there. Nevertheless, Biden and his fellow Democrats are pushing hard for passage of the entire Democrat wish-list.
Press reports say that some House Republicans want to strip committee assignments from the 13 Republicans who allowed Biden's first infrastructure bill to pass, thus paving the way for possible passage of the much larger part two, dubbed "Build Back Better."
Biden is now taking credit for part one and making a strong push for the new entitlement programs and the social transformation of America contained in part two.
"Look, this legislation (part one) is going to change the lives of every American," Biden told the teleconference.
"And now, we need to do it again with my Build Back Better plan. And I'm confident we're going to get it done as we did in the past, everything else we've tried so far, and we're going to need your help. Your help, when you're talking about it, makes the difference. And for those families struggling to afford child care and elder care, our Build Back Better Plan will be life-changing."
Harrison asked Biden, "How will the bipartisan infrastructure bill help me and my family?"
Biden said the just-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill will have a "significant impact."
He made promise after promise, as follows, all in his words:
-- The infrastructure deal is going to create good-paying jobs, union jobs...
-- All those lead pipes will be gone;
-- Transform rail, roads, and bridges, public transit, modernize our ports and our airports and freight rail;
-- Manufacturing solar panels, wind farms, batteries, and electric vehicles to grow clean energy supply chains;
-- Make high-speed internet affordable and available for every American household;
-- Clean up the brownfields and the Superfund sites, as well as plug abandoned mine(s);
-- Build up our resilience to storms and droughts and wildfires, and hurricanes;
-- And these investments are going to help families with their commutes and school drop-off, with safer roads and better transit options;
-- This bill is going to help fix intersections like those dangerous ones you know in your town or your city;
-- And it's going to help businesses, small and large, compete, getting their goods and the goods they make to market faster, and they will offer lower prices.
But wait! There's more!!
Biden also touted his pending "Build Back Better" plan, which has been described as many bills in one -- an expensive, expansive bill that has no Republican support:
"And now, we need to do it again with my Build Back Better Plan," Biden said. "And I'm confident we're going to get it done, as we did in the past, everything else we've tried so far, and we're going to need your help," Biden told the grassroots activists.
Here are Biden's promises on the Build Back Better behemoth, in his words:
-- And for those families struggling to afford child care and elder care, our Build Back Better Plan will be life-changing.
-- For those two million women who can't get back to the workforce right now because of things like child care, this will get them back to work and that's going to be good for them, good for the families, and good for the economy.
-- But there's more. There's universal pre-K for every three- and four-year-old child in America. It's going to increase academic achievement in all children and giving them an even start no matter what home they come from, no matter how little they've been taught to read or they've been read to.
-- It's going to change everything. More affordable health care and lower prescription drug costs.
-- Tax cuts for working people in the middle class and are working their way to the middle class.
-- We're going to make the most significant investment ever to turn the climate crisis into a new opportunity, new jobs.
-- It's fiscally responsible and it's paid for.
-- Plus one more thing, it extends the refundable child tax credit.
-- You know, the Build Back Better plan is not going to cause inflation like people are talking about, because 17 Nobel laureates in economics have looked at my plans and said they will ease inflationary pressure. So, for those Americans who focus on the cost of living, it's even more important to pass this legislation.
Still more...
Biden is already looking beyond passage of what would be the most sweeping leftist agenda ever imposed on the American people:
"There's so much more to do," he said -- "protecting the sacred right to vote, immigration, accords, building on the Affordable Care Act, protecting a woman's right to choose, and so much more.
"And my message is this: We need to remember what got us to the White House in the first place. We won in 2020 as a unified party, maybe more unified than ever. Now, as we look at 2022, we need to stay unified. We need to remember that the American people sent us here to deliver to make their lives better."
CIS Director of Research Steven Camarota now writes that the cost to taxpayers will be even more because the roughly 500,000 to 600,000 illegal aliens released into the U.S. interior this year would be eligible to receive $800 million in cash payments as a result of the tax credits.
Camarota writes:
In an October analysis, we estimated that illegal immigrants would receive $8.2 billion in cash payments from the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), which is part of budget reconciliation bill, also referred to as the Build Back Better (BBB) Act. That analysis assumed cash payments would be limited to illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children, as is the case with the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) it replaces. But the current version of the BBB Act repeals p. 1,452, line 14, the requirement that children claimed as dependents need Social Security numbers (SSNs). As a result, illegal immigrants whose children are illegal immigrants as well will receive an estimated $1.5 billion in payments from the new program. [Emphasis added]
The elimination of the SSN requirement also allows the more than 600,000 illegal immigrants encountered at the border in family units or as unaccompanied minors and released in FY 2021 to receive cash payments from the new CTC. We roughly estimate these new arrivals will receive slightly less than $800 million from the program, for a total of $10.5 billion in cash payments to illegal immigrants here in 2020 or released into the country in FY 2021. Receipt of payments under the new CTC is made all the easier because the BBB eliminates the work requirement of the old ACTC. [Emphasis added]
Report: GOP Insiders Will Seek to Demote Pro-Amnesty Rep. John Katko
Top GOP legislators are facing pressure from fellow Republicans to remove establishment Rep. John Katko from the top GOP slot in the House’s Homeland Security Committee, according to Punchbowl News.
The news site reported November 9:
The GOP leadership is bracing for rank-and-file lawmakers to attempt to strip committee assignments from the 13 Republican lawmakers who voted for the 1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Several of these lawmakers are also ranking members — top Republicans on committees — and these could be at risk, too.
[…]
Much of the anger is directed at John Katko (R-NY), who voted early for the legislation. Katko is the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee. Katko told multiple lawmakers on House floor that he had seen Rep Jim Banks (R-Ind) on television talking about the infrastructure bill, and he was voted early
Katko plays a central role in the GOP’s internal politics over migration policy — and his critics do not think he will try to win the external electoral battle over migration.
“Katko is unfit to serve in an immigration leadership position with his track record of being bought and paid for by corporate donors and his implicit support of amnesty,” a source told Breitbart News. “Having Katko as chairman is no different than if Democrats were still in charge of the committee,” the source added.
Katko arrived in 2015, and became the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee in December 2020.
That ranking membership helped him get the chairmanship of the American Security Task Force which was created to craft a winning immigration message for the 2022 election. That is a critical and difficult job, in part, because Democrats will try to sway swing-voters from listening to GOP’s criticism of Democrats’ border policies.
House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) confers with Rep. John Katko (R-NY) during a news conference with House Republicans about U.S.-Mexico border policy outside the U.S. Capitol on March 11, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Katko’s political circumstances make that task very difficult.
Democrats have the power to reshape Katko’s blue-leaning district to favor a formal Democratic takeover. “Democrats fully control the congressional redistricting process,” according to fivethirtyeight.com. “If the [pending] Democratic map is adopted, it could force Katko, R-Camillus, to run against Tenney, R-New Hartford, in a Republican primary election next year,” Syracuse.com reported in September.
However, Democrats are offering to negotiate, the Syracuse.com noted:
The commission’s chairman, David Imamura, said the draft maps should be viewed as the beginning of a conversation. “They are simply first drafts,” Imamura said. “I will be the first to say that these plans are imperfect, and that based on public input they can, should, and will change.”
Katko is also facing pressure from deep-pocketed business groups who can help or hurt his chances of surviving the redistricting process. For example, in March, business-backed pro-amnesty groups help to spend $200,000 on a pro-migration campaign in Katko’s district. In 2020, he fended off a Democratic challenger with the help of $1.46 million in campaign ads from the Congressional Leadership Fund, an investor funded, pro-migration group that supports pro-migration candidates.
In March, Katko showed his cards when he joined 29 GOP legislators to vote for a Democrat-run farmworker amnesty.
The amnesty would push many American farmworkers out of jobs, push billions of dollars of payroll from rural towns to foreign countries, slash investment in wealth-creating farm machinery, divert wealth from farm states to coastal investors, and create another pipeline of immigrant voters for the Democratic Party.
Katko’s office declined to answer questions from Breitbart.
As Katko struggles to survive 2022, Democrats are defending him. On November 9, for example, President Joe Biden told a Democratic meeting:
You know, the Republicans who voted in the House of Representatives for the infrastructure bill — you’ve seen in the press the reports that the other Republicans are trying to strip them of their standing in their Congress. If they’re a chairman of a committee, they’re trying to strip them of that chairmanship. I’ve never seen it like this before. It’s got to stop for the sake of America. ….[They] are now being threatened with their chairmanships. It’s just not right. We’re going to change it though.
Amid these contradictory pressures, Katko has minimized the GOP’s campaign promises on immigration, despite his chairmanship of the caucus’ campaign-themed American Security Task Force.
In July, Breitbart reported on Katko’s proposed 2022 promise — the passage of the Border Security for America Act of 2021:
“From finishing the border wall system to modernizing technology and bolstering border staffing, this legislation tackles key shortcomings and weaknesses,” Katko said in a statement.
“That’s all there is to it?” responded Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, who noted the bill does not include any language to close up legal loopholes in the border, such as catch-and-release rules:
“It is pretty weak. I’m not against it, but it will not address the border crisis. The border crisis is primarily driven by loopholes in the law that everybody is aware of, not by a lack of equipment or personnel. I don’t dispute there almost certainly are personnel and equipment needs, but that’s not the main problem here.”
Katko has minimized the role of pocketbook issues — jobs, wages, housing — in his migration platform for 2022, despite his own district’s loss of jobs and wealth to immigration-inflated New York.
“The pocketbook issues on immigration is what delivers voters, and if any any member of the Republican party that wants to stay quiet on that front to not upset their corporate donors, they are sending a clear signal that they care more about the donor class than they do their actual constituents,” one Katko critic said.
For example, as voters grow more alarmed at Biden’s record-breaking inflow of job-seeking migrants, Katko touted the psychologically distant threat of terrorists crossing the southern border.
In late October, for example, he warned about terrorists walking through the southern border: “We know a number of terrorists have been caught at the border … We’re not allowed to disclose [the number] publicly.”
That donor-backed migration-scare strategy failed in the 2018 House elections, and also failed in the 2017 Virginia election.
In hearings, Katko has also been solicitous of the Biden’s border chief. Alejandro Mayorkas. In a June 17 hearing, for example, he avoided asking about Mayorkas’ bureaucratic maneuvers to admit more economic migrants, and instead asked:
If [diversity] is one of your core values and one of your core priorities — diversity — why is isn’t there any funding for it in the budget? … Do you believe [the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] should be up to about a $5 billion agency in the not too distant future? … Is it correct that there’s not additional Border Patrol agents scheduled [to be hired] in this budget request? … Do you ever go to a crime scene so you can get your head to see what happened with the crime so [suspects] could then be prosecuted?
Katko’s passivity comes as the Democrats threaten the GOP with a draft reconciliation bill that includes a mass amnesty and a rapid increase in migration. That bill would also deeply damage American graduates, force up housing prices nationwide, and also divert investment, jobs and wealth away from the GOP’s heartland states towards the Democrats’ big coastal states.
On November 5, Katko defended his decision to vote for Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill by declaring his opposition to Biden’s reconciliation bill — and he did not mention any opposition to the bill’s huge changes to legal immigration:
Democrats also made history by beginning the process to pass a separate multi-trillion dollar spending [reconciliation] package. With this vote tonight, Democrats have paved the way to pass a far-left wish list that will raise taxes, implement radical Green New Deal policies, make our economy less competitive, and exacerbate the skyrocketing inflation that is already hurting Central New York families.
The result of Katko’s low-profile stance is that only 48 percent of Americans think the GOP would do a better job on border security than the Democrats, according to an October poll of 1,000 Americans by NBC. Twelve percent of voters say the two parties are similar, and 17 percent says that neither party can do the job, according to the NBC data. The Democrats’ border policies are rated favorably by just 21 percent.
The polling failure comes even though Biden’s Democrats have opened the southern border to roughly 1 million illegal migrants in 2021 — and show little intention of reducing the inflow in 2022.
The GOP only gets a 48 percent score even though Harvard Harris reported that 71 percent of 1,578 registered voters want the migrants to be turned back to Mexico.
In October, GOP leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy stepped in offer a stronger message: “We’ll return to the policies that made our border secure,” he told a press conference.
In September, McCarthy’s office spotlighted a speech by Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-NM). “We stand for our workers. We stand for law enforcement. We stand for safe communities. We stand for borders. We stand for America,” Herrell said.
This stronger pitch is a step towards the policy pushed by Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN). He posted a policy memo on April 14 which urged Republicans to defend working Americans from the government’s extraction-migration policies;
We believe U.S. immigration policy should be designed to primarily serve the interest of American citizens, families, and workers … Immigration policy should prioritize American workers, help grow our middle class, raise wages, and enhance economic opportunity for all lawful residents.
In November, the House GOP’s campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, edged towards a populist economic pitch on migration. Breitbart News reported on November 9;
The House GOP’s 2022 campaign committee has acknowledged that a clear majority of Americans oppose uncapped legal migration and hiring of foreign workers by U.S. corporations.
Fifty-three percent of voters, and 55 percent of independents, oppose “removing federal limits on the number of foreign workers who can be hired by corporations to do jobs based in the United States,” said a summary of a November 2-4 poll of 800 likely voters by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
“Well, the immigration issue is a pocketbook issue,” NRCC chairman Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) told Breitbart News on November 7. Emmer continued:
You’re talking about immigration being a kitchen table issue and how it impacts [voters]. The bottom line is that polling showed us this is still a very potent issue for Americans. This is something that, while some people would want to write it off, this is something that Americans care about, and this administration has completely punted on the immigration issue — and talk about incompetence!
Surveys show that a pocketbook message on immigration can win support from Democratic voters.
Rep. John Katko (R-NY) walks through the Canon Tunnel to the U.S. Capitol on January 12, 2021 in Washington, DC, as the House of Representatives plans to vote on Rep. Jamie Raskin’s (D-MD) resolution calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, removing President Trump from office. (Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images)
For example, roughly one-in-six of Biden’s 2020 voters say they strongly agree that illegal migration will drive up their housing prices, cut their wages, or take their jobs, according to an extensive survey sponsored by the University of Virginia’s Democrat-leaning Center for Politics.
The survey spotlighted “Concerned Moms,” a broad group of Democratic-leaning swing voters who “are worried about higher housing costs, taxes, and potential negative employment effects due to immigration.”
Many polls show that labor migration is deeply unpopular because it damages ordinary Americans’ career opportunities, cuts their wages, and raises their rents. Migration also curbs Americans’ productivity, shrinks their political clout, widens regional wealth gaps radicalizes their democratic, compromise-promoting civic culture, and allows elites to ignore despairing Americans at the bottom of society.
For many years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates. This opposition is multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, bipartisan, rational, persistent, attractive to Democratic voters, and recognizes the solidarity Americans owe to each other.
Analysis: Biden’s ‘Build Back Better Act’ Gives $800M in Cash Payments to Illegal Aliens Released into U.S.
President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better Act,” a filibuster-proof $1.75 trillion budget reconciliation package, would give $800 million worth of cash payments to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who were recently released into the United States interior, a new analysis states.
As Breitbart News previously reported, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analyzed the cost to American taxpayers if Biden’s expanded Child Tax Credit for illegal aliens was extended for at least another year as part of the reconciliation package.
Initially, the CIS analysis found that the cost to provide the tax credits to illegal aliens with children would cost about $80 billion over the course of a decade, or about $8 billion every year.
CIS Director of Research Steven Camarota now writes that the cost to taxpayers will be even more because the roughly 500,000 to 600,000 illegal aliens released into the U.S. interior this year would be eligible to receive $800 million in cash payments as a result of the tax credits.
Camarota writes:
In an October analysis, we estimated that illegal immigrants would receive $8.2 billion in cash payments from the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), which is part of budget reconciliation bill, also referred to as the Build Back Better (BBB) Act. That analysis assumed cash payments would be limited to illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children, as is the case with the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) it replaces. But the current version of the BBB Act repeals p. 1,452, line 14, the requirement that children claimed as dependents need Social Security numbers (SSNs). As a result, illegal immigrants whose children are illegal immigrants as well will receive an estimated $1.5 billion in payments from the new program. [Emphasis added]
The elimination of the SSN requirement also allows the more than 600,000 illegal immigrants encountered at the border in family units or as unaccompanied minors and released in FY 2021 to receive cash payments from the new CTC. We roughly estimate these new arrivals will receive slightly less than $800 million from the program, for a total of $10.5 billion in cash payments to illegal immigrants here in 2020 or released into the country in FY 2021. Receipt of payments under the new CTC is made all the easier because the BBB eliminates the work requirement of the old ACTC. [Emphasis added]
Camarota estimates that nearly 8-in-10 illegal alien families in the U.S. “have incomes low enough to receive cash from” the tax credits, securing an average payment of $5,300 per family or $2,600 per child.
Democrats and Biden are pushing the plan despite opposition from most Americans. A recent Morning Consult survey found that 52 percent of registered U.S. voters are opposed to making the tax credits permanent. Likewise, a survey from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) found that 2-in-3 voters are opposed to the tax credits when they are told the amount of money it will provide to illegal aliens.
Already, the most recent research estimates that illegal immigration to the U.S. costs American taxpayers about $134 billion annually. The research suggests that each illegal alien costs taxpayers about $9,300 every year.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Republicans Voted for Biden’s Infrastructure Bill After Securing Cash from Chamber of Commerce
A total of 32 House and Senate Republicans helped push President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure package over the finish line, most of whom have been showered with campaign cash from the leading lobbying group behind the bill — the United States Chamber of Commerce.
The story is a fixture of Washington, D.C.’s swamp culture.
Elected lawmakers run for office, grabbing donations from special interest groups, then, after their election, voting for legislation supported by those special interest groups despite their constituents’ opposition.
In the case of Biden’s infrastructure bill, the Chamber had been lobbying for the measure since the start of the year. By July, Open Secrets reported that the Chamber had spent more than $12 million lobbying for the bill in the second quarter, alone. In the first quarter, the Chamber spent $17.5 million lobbying for the bill.
The Chamber’s intense lobbying focus proved successful when 13 House Republicans voted with Democrats last week to send the bill to Biden’s desk after 19 Senate Republicans, in August, helped pass the bill with Democrats.
The 32 House and Senate Republicans who voted for the bill are:
- John Katko (R-NY)
- Don Bacon (R-NE)
- Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ)
- Fred Upton (R-MI)
- Adam Kinzinger (R-IL)
- Don Young (R-AK)
- Tom Reed (R-NY)
- Chris Smith (R-NJ)
- Andrew Garbarino (R-NY)
- Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY)
- Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
- Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH)
- David McKinley (R-WV)
- Dan Sullivan (R-AK)
- Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
- Mike Crapo (R-ID)
- Roy Blunt (R-MO)
- Richard Burr (R-NC)
- Deb Fischer (R-NE)
- Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
- Rob Portman (R-OH)
- Thom Tillis (R-NC)
- Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
- Jim Risch (R-ID)
- Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
- Roger Wicker (R-MS)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- John Hoeven (R-ND)
- Susan Collins (R-ME)
- Mitt Romney (R-UT)
Campaign contributions reviewed by Breitbart News show that all but nine of the House and Senate Republicans took donations from the Chamber in their recent election and re-election bids.
Tillis, representing the swing state of North Carolina, received $15,000 from the Chamber’s official political action committee (PAC) in recent election cycles, the most of any of the lawmakers.
Sullivan, Blunt, Graham, Portman, McConnell, and Collins each have taken $10,000 from the U.S. Chamber PAC in recent election cycles from 2015 to this year. Cassidy, Capito, Burr, Fischer, Murkowski, and Risch have each received $5,000 from the PAC, while Grassley last received money, $1,500, from the PAC in 2016.
In the House, Katko, Bacon, Garbarino, Fitzpatrick, and Gonzalez each received $6,000 from the U.S. Chamber PAC between 2020 and this year. Upton and Reed each took $5,000 while Van Drew and Young each accepted $2,500 checks from the PAC.
Passage of the bill, through a coalition of corporate-friendly Republicans and nearly all Democrats, serves as the first test for the Chamber’s relationship with the GOP since it began endorsing Democrats in elections last year and has rebuked economic nationalism in favor of its globalist ideology that favors the multinational corporations it represents.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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