Mediaboss Marketing

On his very first day in office the new President Biden sent a comprehensive immigration bill to Congress to fulfill one of his major campaign promises. Will it work this time? A short look back at history shows just how difficult immigration reform can be. There have been two attempts at comprehensive immigration reform in the 21st century: one in 2007 and one in 2013. In both instances the political environment started out looking promising, and in both instances the legislation failed.

In 2006 there was every reason to be optimistic about the prospects for immigration reform. President George W. Bush was in his second term and thus had nothing to fear from a far-right challenge for his partys nomination. In addition, as a former governor of Texas, he had great familiarity with the issue and wanted very much to do something about it. He had bipartisan support in the Senate from two of its most revered members: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA). In the 2006 elections, Democrats took control and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA) became the first woman speaker of the House. There was reason to assume that a strong, bipartisan coalition could be put together in favor of a comprehensive bill.

But that coalition never happened.

In the winter and spring of 2006 pro-immigration reform groups, many of them Mexican-American political action organizations, decided that they could help the prospect of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act by organizing a series of high-profile national marches. Not content with the fact that President George W. Bush and most of the liberals in the Senate, including Senator Ted Kennedy, were planning to work together on a bipartisan bill, organizers assumed that bringing the fight out of Washington and to the country would help their cause.

All through the spring of 2006 organizers put together mega-events. A march in Chicago drew 100,000 marchers. It was followed by demonstrations in Tampa, Houston, Dallas and even Salt Lake City. The biggest demonstration of all took place in Los Angeles on March 25, 2006, when more than 500,000 people marched and attended rallies at the Civic Center and in MacArthur Park. Even more marches took place on May Day (May 1) a day otherwise known as International Workers Daya traditional time of demonstrations for trade unions and other left-wing political causes.

The marches were widely covered by a mostly favorable media. Marchers waved American flags (some upside downwhich can be a sign of distress or of disrespect) and Mexican flags. Signs were in Spanish and EnglishSi se puede was a popular one, as was Today we march, tomorrow we vote. In both breadth and enthusiasm, these marches evoked the large civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s.

However, the consensus immediately after the fact was that the demonstrations backfired. Even though organizers had tried to get marchers to leave the Mexican flags at home, their argument was only partially successful against arguments about ethnic pride. The Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigration group, saw its membership increase. Members of Congress felt the backlash. Republican lawmakers saw their offices flooded with phone calls as a result of the marches. Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) said They lost me, when I saw so many Mexican flags.[1] The size and magnitude of the demonstrations had some kind of backfire effect, said John McLoughlin, a Republican pollster working for House members and Senators seeking re-election.

With a large chunk of the Republican Party energized by their nativist base to oppose the 2007 bill, President Bush needed solid Democratic support. But the Democrats had their own factional problems. In April 2006 the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, referred to the guest worker provisions in the bill as indentured servitude. And AFL-CIO President John Sweeny openly opposed the guest worker provisions as well. Opposition came from Black lawmakers too. Speaking on National Public Radio, political scientist Ron Walters pointed to the response of the Congressional Black Caucus to a liberal immigration bill produced by one of its own members, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas. Only 9 of the 43 caucus members supported it.

The factional divides among House Democrats were present among Democratic voters as well. A 2005 Pew poll asked Democrats questions about immigration and divided them into liberals, conservatives and disadvantaged democrats (referring to economic disadvantage). Note the stark differences between liberals and both disadvantaged Democrats and conservatives.

Table 1: Other Fissures in the Democratic Coalition (Source: Pew Research Center)

The immigration bill died in the summer of 2007 when proponents failed to garner the 60 votes in the Senate required to move the bill forward. And in the House, Speaker Pelosi needed 50 to 70 Republican votes to move forward but a resolution in the Republican conference opposing the Senate bill passed by 114 to 21. She decided not to bring it to the floor.

It took six years before a second comprehensive immigration bill was introduced into Congress. As in 2007, many political experts thought that this time the stars were aligned. Democrats had picked up seats in the Senate in the 2012 elections that gave them a comfortable majority. And Democratic President Barack Obama had won a second term in office with a strong backing from Hispanic voters, leading national Republicans to discuss the need to deal with immigration in the face of the growing Hispanic vote. While Republicans still controlled the House, Democrats had picked up seats. On June 27, 2013, Senate bill 744, a second comprehensive immigration bill, passed the Senate on a 68 to 32 vote. The bill had been created by a bipartisan gang of 8 four Democratic senators and four Republican senatorsand its passage created the expectation that there would be quick action in the House as well.[2]

Contributing to this optimism was the fact that this time around the Democratic coalition was less divided. In the six years since failure of the 2007 legislation, the labor movement had changed and included many more Hispanics in its membership. Rick Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO had this to say about the new legislation:

Our role is to make sure that road map leads to citizenship achievable not only in theory but in fact. Workers care for the elderly, mow our lawns or drive our taxis, work hard and deserve a reliable road map to citizenship. And so the labor movements entire grassroots structure will be mobilized throughout this process and across this country to make sure the road map is inclusive.

The Congressional Black Caucus was a bit less enthusiastic but still expressed support for the effort while complaining that the Diversity Visa Program had been eliminated.[3] And the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the agricultural lobby were on board as well.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration had continued efforts begun during the Bush administration to prove that the United States could police the borders. In 2013 federal prosecutions for immigration crimes reached an all-time high.

But Obamas get-tough actions at the border infuriated Hispanic activists and failed to convince some Republicans that the border was under control.

If the factions of the Democratic Party had softened in the years between 2007 and 2013, the factions in the Republican Party had hardened. In 2013, Speaker John Boehner was facing significant intra-party infighting, largely due to the growing voice of the Tea Party activists in his conferencea group that would contribute to his historic resignation just two years later. To please the hard-liners in his party he rejected the Senate bill in favor of a series of smaller bills and then, when suspicion was that these smaller bills would go to conference with the hated Senate bill, he had to promise not to compromise.

And then, as is so often the case in politics, something happened that on the face of it had nothing to do with immigration reform but that killed it nonetheless. Majority Leader Eric Cantor, widely expected to succeed Boehner as speaker, lost his Republican primary to a right-wing tea party supporter who among other things campaigned on opposition to immigration reform. Republicans were spooked by Cantors loss. If a member of the leadership could lose to an unknown Tea Party challenger, they could too. Boehner never brought the legislation to the floor, in spite of the fact that it probably could have passed with a united Democratic caucus and some more moderate business-oriented Republicans.

What will happen this time around is anyones guess. Immigration reform has always had a way of eluding the best-laid plans of powerful people. The Republican Party is still in limbo, with many members clearly anti-immigrant and others fearful of an anti-immigrant primary electorate. While Democrats are less divided than Republicans, their margins are so small that they cant afford to lose anyone.

Immigration reform may be as difficult in the third decade of the 21st century as it was in the first and second. This is in part because of a fundamental paradox. On the one hand, the United States is a country of immigrants; on the other hand, it is a country that has always been worried about being overrun by immigrants. And this makes reform especially difficult.

[1] Otis L. Graham Jr. Immigration Reform and Americas Unchosen Future (Bloomington Indiana, Author House 2008), page 437.

[2] The Democrats were: Michael Bennett (CO) Dick Durbin (ILL) Bob Menendez (NJ) and Chuck Schumer (NY). The Republicans were: Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), Jeff Flake (AZ) John McCain (AZ) and Marco Rubio (FLA)

[3] The Diversity Visa Program is a lottery for obtaining a green card to work in the United States.

View original post here:
Can Biden pass immigration reform? History says it will be tough - Brookings Institution

By Casey HarperThe Center Squarehttps://www.thecentersquare.com/

Several Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate sent a letter to the IRS June 25 demanding the agency correct a ruling they say could have major implications for churches and faith-based organizations in the U.S.

Fifteen members signed the letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig about a Christian group in Texas called Christians Engaged. The group released a letter from the IRS stating that the federal tax agency denied the group 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, saying "Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the [Republican] party and candidates.

That line of reasoning has sparked significant controversy.

These issues have always been at the core of Christian belief and classifying them as inherently political is patently absurd, the Republican letter reads. If the IRS applied this interpretation broadly, it would jeopardize the tax-exempt status of thousands of Christian churches around the country.

Christians Engaged works to get Christians more active in government. They are challenging the IRS' denial. Now, they have the support of several members of Congress, whose Friday letter accuses the IRS of political biases.

We write today to express extreme concern regarding a recent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) determination on the tax-exempt status of Christians Engaged, a nonprofit organization located in Texas, the letter says. We urge you to personally review this determination, and remove the individual, or individuals, responsible for the blatantly biased, discriminatory, and flawed reasoning that led to the determination.

Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah signed onto the letter, which goes on to call for the firing of the IRS employees responsible for the decision.

The IRS must objectively analyze applications for tax-exempt status and cannot allow political biases to creep into its decisions, the letter says. We urge you to immediately review Christians Engageds application for 501(c)(3) status personally, and terminate the IRS staff involved in the flawed and politically motivated reasoning behind the determination.

The IRS has not yet responded to the letter.

Christians Engaged incorporated in 2019 as a nonprofit in Texas. The groups mission is nonpartisan religious and civic education, focusing on encouraging and educating Christians to be civically engaged as a part of their religious practice.

The recent determination on Christians Engageds tax-exempt status further exposed the corruption and liberal bias running rampant at the IRS, said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas. This discriminatory action against a Christian nonprofit is an overt attack on religious liberty by a tyrannical federal government. Moreover, this decision comes at a time when members of both parties are trying to increase the ability of the IRS to harass individual Americans, businesses, and organizations."

The controversy comes at a time when President Joe Biden has advocated for expanding the IRS to allow for more aggressive auditing in an attempt to raise revenue for his spending plans.

Commissioner Rettig must review this decision and hold accountable the IRS staff involved, and rather than expand the IRS's power, as the new infrastructure deal proposes, we should abolish it, Roy said.

The IRS came under heavy fire during the Obama administration for targeting conservatives in the Tea Party. Republicans Friday alluded to that treatment in their concern about this latest case.

Religious institutions should not be punished for their fundamental Judeo-Christian values. I am deeply concerned that the IRS is once again being weaponized against everyday Americans, said Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo. Their latest attempt to remove tax-exempt status from Christians Engaged sends a chilling warning that Americans First Amendment rights are under siege. We cannot allow any political bias at the IRS.

Other critics lumped the issue in with other key lines of attack against the Biden administration in recent weeks.

Biden/Harris IRS targets conservatives, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote on Twitter. Biden/Harris DOJ sues Georgia for voting laws. Biden/Harris DHS ignores the border crisis. And now Democrats in Congress want to give the Biden/Harris FTC more unchecked powers. Bad!Casey Harper is a senior reporter for the Washington, D.C. bureau. He previously worked for The Daily Caller, The Hill, and Sinclair Broadcast Group. A graduate of Hillsdale College, Harper's has also appeared in Fox News, Fox Business and USA Today.

Read more:
GOP questions IRS ruling that could jeopardize tax-exempt status of churches - The Highland County Press

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Cryptocurrency has become a mainstream investment. Tax authorities around the world are looking for ways to enforce taxation and identify tax evasion. Blockchain, the technology best known as the system underpinning bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, enables secure transactions between strangers without a trusted third party and on an anonymous basis. We should not fail to consider that blockchain technology goes far beyond cryptocurrencies.

What conclusions can I draw about my observations of blockchain? Blockchain could help the world overcome the hatred of taxes. My contention is that the real enemy we hate is not the tax itself but the myopia of not being able to see where our hard-earned money goes once it gets away from us. This does not mean that other factors are necessarily absent. Other factors include fear, complexity, bureaucratic procedures, and compound interest, let alone behavioral economics findings.

Know the enemy: We do not hate taxes, we hate the lack of transparency.

If while living at the beginning of the digital revolution you hate taxes, then you better be happy that you were not there when Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards. Russians of the time had different reasons to hate taxes than the Bostonians in 1773 during the Boston Tea Party. Our reasons to hate taxes belong to our own time and place in history.

Historians from the future should go directly to watch The Trouble with Trillions episode of The Simpsons that shows how current people experience the tax system nowadays. The episode starts on New Year Eve when Ned Flanders files his taxes (calculated with extremely cautious deductions). When does that the average person file taxes? You guessed it! Last-minute of the last day. The Simpsons news report by Kent Brockman is illustrative:

Future taxpayers will not understand this chapter as children today dont understand what a floppy disk and a VHS are. In that future world, automation will warrant that every taxable dollar is actually taxed and the bureaucratic procedures will be gone together with all the fear, and complexity of our tax system. However, it is uncertain whether transparency will be there. I am talking about transparency as a taxpayers right to follow the money. From no taxation without representation to no taxability without traceability. Sounds revolutionary, right? Revolutionary is what blockchain is doing.

To know the enemy, you must become the enemy: Transparency is possible where every taxpayer is a block that traces the tax revenue within a blockchain.

Blockchain is a decentralized solution for transparent real-time visibility of tax revenue. Imagine a giant spreadsheet that allows you to track every transaction made out of the tax revenue. Imagine that it is automatically updated every few minutes with the latest revenue movements. Now, here comes the fun: Imagine that the spreadsheet is not only stored by the government, instead it is in every taxpayers computer simultaneously, and with live updates. Just like you track my Amazon packages!

Traceability of the tax revenue is now centralized in the government that collects and spends. The system engenders from the disconformity of taxpayers who do not know where their money goes to political interference, discretionary spending, and corruption (on both sides, do not get me wrong). My proposal is a traceability system that would replace governmental trust for cryptographic proof.

Cryptographic proof gives blockchain the attribute of immutability. Every block of the blockchain subsequently verifies and confirms the information. That way, although every taxpayer is part of the system and can trace the data, none can independently intrude or alter the registered information. Going back to the Art of War, Chapter XIII - The Use of Spies taught us that when many unconnected spies are at work, none can manipulate the system.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. or its owners.

Sofia Larrea is an international tax and transaction services professional in Boston.

Bloomberg Tax Insights articles are written by experienced practitioners, academics, and policy experts discussing developments and current issues in taxation. To contribute, please contact us at TaxInsights@bloombergindustry.com.

See the article here:
Inventing the Enemy: Taxes - Bloomberg Tax

It feels like yesterday that my wife and I were shopping for grade schools for our daughter the same daughter who just graduated from high school.

We visited a bunch of private schools where the children of Washingtons elite get turned into the feedstock of the meritocracy.

The most remarkable thing about the experience was how nearly all of the schools were obsessed with diversity and all the pedagogic and social issues attached to the term. Many pitched diversity not merely as important but as their sole comparative advantage. The headmaster of one prestigious school even advised a group of parents to look at the mission statements of other schools. Youll see a lot of buzzwords like academic rigor and scholarship,' he warned, making scare quotes in the air with his fingers. Well, we want you to know that we consider our social justice mission more important than academics.

I often tell this story to point out that school choice isnt the solution to political correctness that many conservatives think it is. Parents who can afford to send their kids to private schools dont need vouchers; theyve got cash. Im bringing this up for different reasons.

Proponents of critical race theory and antiracism (the idea that being nonracist isnt good enough; you have to embrace an antiracist agenda) as an approach to classroom instruction believe America is shot through with structural racism and white supremacy and that white people must atone for their privilege somehow.

Taking this approach, they claim, will usher in a long-overdue reckoning with our past and present. They make it sound as if before 2021, it never occurred to anyone that kids should be taught about racism or the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Currently, most k-12 students already learn a kind of Confederate Race Theory, whereby the Daughters of the Confederacy long ago imposed a version of history wherein slavery was not so bad and had nothing to do with the civil war, and lynchings and violence never happened, MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid recently tweeted.

Well, I can report that this is otherworldly nonsense, going by my daughters experience or that of the children of people I know in Washington. At affluent K-12 schools, public or private, teaching about racism, slavery and civil rights has been central to social studies curricula for decades.

But you know what? This has also been the case at most non-elite schools. The idea that, absent a critical-race-theory lens, most students would be taught American history through the prism of Gone With the Wind or The Birth of a Nation is preposterous.

And parents know it. Which is why the debate over this new political hobbyhorse has people talking past each other.

Comparisons to the tea party protests of 2009 are imperfect but instructive. For liberals, the protests ignited by Barack Obamas stimulus package seemed illegitimate. For some, it was a racist backlash against a Black president. For others, it was a fake movement fueled by astroturfing political grifters. (The grifters eventually took it over, but that came later.) And some saw it as hypocritical. George W. Bush had his bank and auto industry bailouts, and conservatives went along. Why rediscover fiscal restraint now? But for increasingly populist conservatives at that time, more government spending by any administration was a last straw.

When proponents of critical race theory say they are merely proposing a belated corrective to the way American history has been framed, many parents dont buy it, having seen what their children are taught now.

The current battle over critical race theory is a wonderful gift to the Republicans in the short term. The GOP would love to win back white suburban parents with culture-war issues, now that it has no credibility on fiscal matters. But in the long run, this could be disastrous for the party and the country, because the last thing anyone needs is to redefine the culture war as a racial conflict.

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

View post:
Battle over critical race theory won't benefit GOP in long run - Martins Ferry Times Leader

A Teesside grandad is raising a cuppa for the Trussell Trust.

Malcolm McGregor, 65, from Acklam, volunteered with Middlesbrough Foodbank during the covid-19 pandemic, and he is now encouraging local people to host a tea party with donations going to the anti-poverty charity.

Throughout this unprecedented period, Malcolm helped get thousands of emergency food parcels to people living in crisis in the town, along with a team of volunteers.

Read more: The hospital volunteers who made a massive difference during pandemic - and now have NHS jobs

When I was a young man in Middlesbrough there were lots of opportunities and really good jobs, but in recent years Ive seen more and more people affected by poverty.

The past year has been particularly tough for many of us and I wanted to do something in recognition of the hardship some people were going through, so I thought that helping and supporting the food bank would be a great way to give back, Malcolm said.

He was inspired to volunteer at his local food bank after seeing the levels of destitution and poverty rise across Middlesbrough in recent times.

Malcolm was born and bred in the town, and has dedicated hours of voluntary service to Middlesbrough Foodbank, which is part of the Trussell Trusts network.

He is a regular worshipper at Saint Barnabas in Linthorpe, along with his wife, and the pair became involved with the food bank station at the church.

Retired teacher Malcolm now welcomes people into the food bank, offering them a friendly welcome as they come to collect their food packages.

When I started volunteering, I used to label tins of food but now I work more closely with the people who come into the food bank and need help and support.

Im one of the first faces people will see when they walk into the food bank.

Before the pandemic, people would come in and sit down and I would chat to them and offer them tea, coffee and cakes whilst their order was being processed.

Although this has now changed due to social distancing restrictions, I am still there to offer everyone kind words, words of encouragement.

I feel its important to make that contact and show people that theyre not just coming in for food, but also to meet people who care, who take the time to spend a few minutes with them, Malcolm said.

He is now encouraging people across Middlesbrough to host a Tea for Trussell tea party and raise vital funds for the charity that aims to end the need for food banks in the UK.

Families, friends and colleagues can come together over a brew and cake on a day that suits them, with fundraisers able to host events at home or virtually to raise their mugs with love.

As lockdown restrictions begin to ease, the event will be a brilliant way to get the team together over a cup of tea and cake, while supporting an important cause which is making a difference to thousands of people in crisis.

Its not right that anyone is forced to turn to a food bank and we owe it to each other to make sure that sufficient financial support is in place when we need it the most, Malcolm said.

Whether youre an expert baker or you prefer to buy pre-made goods, Tea for Trussell is a fun way to catch up over a cuppa and make a difference to thousands of people living in crisis.

I would urge everyone across Middlesbrough to get involved and join in with Tea for Trussell.

Its tough to hear about people needing to use food banks to get by, but together we can all make a difference and help build a UK where everyone can afford the basics, Malcolm said.

The charity supports a nationwide network of over 1,300 food bank centres, including the one in Middlesbrough, and provides support to thousands of people in poverty.

Between April 2020 and March 2021, Middlesbrough Foodbank distributed 8,594 emergency food parcels to those facing crisis.

Events engagement manager at the Trussell Trust, Kate Merrified said: We are incredibly grateful to Malcolm and the team at Middlesbrough Foodbank for supporting Tea for Trussell.

Hosting your own tea party is a brilliant way to bring friends, families and colleagues together this summer, while raising vital funds to end the need for food banks.

We all know that some of the best conversations happen over brew, which is why a cup of tea is also at the heart of our food bank network.

The warm welcome of a cuppa has the power to spark conversation and offer support to people coming into the food bank, while helping to uncover and address the underlying issues of poverty.

Free fundraising packs with recipes and top tips are available here or by emailing fundraising@trusselltrust.org

The Trussell Trust is determined to create a future where food banks would not be needed in the UK.

All money raised from Tea for Trussell will go towards the charitys vision of a country where everyone can afford life essentials.

Sign up to Teesside Live's newsletter here.

Kate said: Its not right that any of us need to use a food bank but we know that this can change.

Thats why were urging everyone across Middlesbrough to put the kettle on and get their loved ones involved in this exciting event.

Whether you prefer your tea milky or black, with sugar or without, builders brew or a masala chai, anything goes, as long as youre having fun!

Now is the perfect time to raise both a cuppa and donations, so that together we can build a hunger free future.-

Link:
Malcolm's seen what life on bread line is like for others - and now tells his food bank volunteer story - Teesside Live