Per Immigration Bill’s Collapse - McCain States That The “Center Didn’t Hold” (Radio Iowa)
Radio Iowa did a fantastic job on Senator McCain’s appearance today on the collapse of the immigration bill. (Hat tip to Jonathan Martin at The Politico for finding it.) Radio Iowa provides a transcript of Senator McCain’s remarks on his collapse (and if one is interested, the audio file from his entire appearance, which included other topics.)
McCain’s remarks:
“Yesterday in the Senate, last night, we rejected the proposal for immigration reform and of course I was — as you know — as one of the supporters I was disappointed that that happened but I respect the process and I respect the views of those who disagree and it’s a very complicated and interesting and frustrating issue to many Americans. One of the reasons why Americans are frustrated is because in 1986, some of you may remember, we passed a law where we said we would give amnesty for a couple million people who were in this country illegally and we promised the American people we would secure our borders. Well, we gave the amnesty and we didn’t fix the borders and now we have 12 million here illegally and Americans are very frustrated by that and today some hundreds more will cross our border.
“It’s a national security issue because since 9/11 we can’t afford to have 12 million people in this country not knowing where they are and what they’re doing. Three guys, three people who wanted to go to Fort Dix, New Jersey, and kill American soldiers came across our southern border illegally, so it is first and foremost a national security issue and then it’s an economic issue and many others.
“So we failed yesterday to move forward. There were opponents that believed that this was some kind of ‘amnesty.’ There were others on the other sides, there was 12 Democrats who voted against it as well that thought we were too tough, that we were too tough on people coming into the country so there was, the great center didn’t hold.
“As you know, the President of the United States and I and many others were hopeful that we could come to some conclusion on this. Well, my friends, because we didn’t, then — as I said — several hundred people will come across the Arizona border today into Arizona and around the country and several hundred tomorrow and then the next day so it’s not an issue that we can say: ‘Well, it’s over’ because it’s not over. We still have broken borders and we still have this problem of not finding out who these people are.
“I hope that we can revisit this issue. I don’t think any of us believe that the status quo is satisfactory. In fact, if you leave it alone it is de facto amnesty. If you’re letting people stay in this country illegally, obviously it’s silent amnesty or de facto amnesty so I hope we can do a better job of educating the American people on this issue and take it up and get it resolved because the status quo I think most of us would agree is unacceptable.
“And then there’s just one other aspect of this: again, we failed. My friends, look at the challenges that this nation faces — Social Security is going to go bankrupt; Medicare is obviously going to go bankrupt; we’ve got wasteful spending; we’ve got a tax code that nobody can understand; we’ve got a lot of challenges and issues before our country that we have to address and you and the people of Arizona send me to Washington to do the hard things and as President of the United States I want to assure you I’ll go there to do the hard things and one of the things that I’ll tackle immediately is the wasteful and terrible spending practices of Congress.”
Do you have a question about campaigns, politics, etc.? Or do you have information to pass along? Or both? The Tower welcomes all replies and/or commentary, positive or otherwise. You can contact The Tower at tower@campaignia.org.
Come visit the main site - www.campaignia.org - for more about Campaign 2008 and campaigns in general.