Joe Misunderstands

By Ken Blackwell & Bob Morrison 

They let Joe Biden out without a leash again. He went to China this month and pronounced the Communist giant's one child policy "repugnant." That was, of course, after he told a Chinese audience at Chengdu University that "your policy has been one which I fully understand -- I'm not second-guessing -- of one child per family." Repugnant? Understandable? Which is it? Well, you need to have Joe Biden's forty years of skilled diplomacy to be able to tell which.

Joe Biden has been underrated for too long. We don't realize what an unusual talent we have just a heartbeat away from the presidency. The White House is trying to rectify that. They feature important contributions by Joe Biden on their website.

Here's one that caught our attention: Joe Biden was being hailed for his contributions to the fight against domestic violence against women. Well, we're certainly all against that. But Biden did more than we did. He authored a bill -- The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) -- to show how much he is against it: The White House website explains:

Written and championed by then-Senator Biden, VAWA focused on improving the criminal justice response to domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault.

Now, that law, VAWA, was all about domestic violence against women. As opposed to violence against women in foreign nations. Like China, for example.

China Scholar Steven Mosher knows something about China and about violence against women there. In the late 1970s, Steven Mosherwas the first U.S. doctoral student permitted to study and write about life in rural China. Fluent in Chinese, Mosher lived among the peasants and wrote about their life with beauty, sympathy, and humor. Once, while visiting a humble Chinese café -- a greasy chopstick if not a greasy spoon -- the owner spied him sitting with the agricultural workers and construction gang members waiting for their noon meal. "You go upstairs," the Chinese lady proprietor yelled at the obviously Western visitor, Mosher. "This place not fit for pigs. You eat upstairs." Steven noted that the Chinese peasants sitting around the downstairs tables all laughed good naturedly and agreed with the owner.

But Steven Mosher uncovered something in rural China far more menacing than unhygienic eateries. In those days, like so many Western grad students, Steve Mosher considered himself pro-choice on abortion. Yet, he was shocked to find trucks roaring into these quiet villages. "Cadres" -- as Communist officials in China are called -- were empowered to round up pregnant peasant women who were about to have their second or third child. The women cried piteously as they were forcibly pushed into the open trucks and hauled off to party headquarters. There they were kept, without family contact, and browbeaten into getting abortions. Some of these women were in their seventh, eighth, and even ninth month of pregnancy.

Shocked, Steven Mosher published an article about forced abortions in China. Even the New York Times managed to tut-tut its disapproval of forcing women to get abortions.

But Stanford University was warned by the Beijing regime that they'd better get rid of Ph.D. candidate Steven Mosher or they would never send another grad student to China .

What could poor Stanford do? They didn't have any nuclear weapons. So they quickly passed a rule to cover their stray scholar's case -- and promptly applied it to young Mosher. You think it's not right to pass an ex post facto law? Well, the Faculty Senate of Stanford University is not the U.S. Congress. So, faster than you can say General Tso's Chicken, Mosher was pitched out of his graduate degree program and forbidden to re-enter the People's Republic of China.

Now, Steven Mosher is president of the prestigious Population Research Institute. He has long since converted to Catholicism, is married, and the father of nine children. He remains a champion for the persecuted people of China .

Joe Biden was in the Senate in 1979. His greatest accomplishment of thirty-eight years in the U.S. Senate was the passage of the Violence Against Women Act. Now, he goes to China as a member of an administration that is giving $50 million to help China apply a one child policy which Biden thinks is "understandable" and "repugnant."

China is probably the worst example of violence against women in history of the world. And 160 million girl babies have been killed by abortion in China and in other Asian cultures to which U.S. de-population aid will now be flowing.

Joe Biden will have a lot of explaining to do. To American taxpayers, to history, and to God.

The Unsustainable Cost of Local Pensions

By RiShawn Biddle 

You wouldn't think that Erie County, Pa., epitomizes the least visible yet most insidious aspect of the nation's pension crisis. With just 280,566 residents, the county is better known for its once-grand status as being the hub between the Rust Belt metropolises of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo, for the sandy Presque Island State Park, and for being the site of one of the few battles won by the Americans in the War of 1812. But these days, Erie County taxpayers are learning plenty about the high cost of pension and retiree healthcare deals struck over the past five decades by politicians and public sector unions.

In the county seat of Erie, taxpayers have seen the city's pension deficit increase by a 12-fold between 2003 and 2007 to $22 million. Given that the most recent audit by Pennsylvania's state auditor only accounts for pension costs from four years ago -- and doesn't account for the last decade's financial meltdown, the current economic malaise, or new deals such as a new contract with the city's firefighters' union that forces it to hire 20 more hook-and-ladder men -- the cost to taxpayers is probably even higher.

Residents in nearby Millcreek Township -- where police officers and other civil servants get free healthcare -- must cover $5.4 million in pension deficits; residents in the city of Corry struggle with a $2 million tab.

While Erie County residents must struggle with a $30 million pension tab for its municipalities, they also face even bigger costs from the county government. The county's pension is underfunded to the tune of $23 million, while the county has set no funds to cover its $69 million in unfunded retiree healthcare costs. And those costs are increasing rapidly. This year, taxpayers will shell out $5 million to cover immediate pension costs -- a 41 percent increase over the costs paid out three years ago.

Erie County residents aren't alone. The $3 trillion tab faced by American taxpayers for state civil servant and teachers' pensions has captured much of the public attention -- and has been the driving force behind heated battles in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jersey between school reform activists and public-sector unions. But taxpayers must also worry about the nation's 2,329 local pension systems and retiree healthcare benefits, whose deficits are growing thanks to generous public employee deals, feckless fiscal management, and overly optimistic investment assumptions.

Taxpayers in Central Falls, R.I. -- which is now using bankruptcy to deal with $80 million in pension deficits -- have seen the consequences of fiscal incompetence. So have residents in dusty Vallejo, Calif. (which is emerging from its own bankruptcy) and Benton Harbor, Mich., whose government is now under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager. (The American Spectator discusses more about Benton Harbor's fate and that of other Michigan towns in its September issue.) And even more taxpayers are finding their cities heading toward similarly dire straits.

Residents in rugged Baltimore find themselves on the hock for at least $940 million in deficits for its three pension plans; the real tab may be as much as $3.7 billion, according to estimates by University of Rochester professor Robert Novy-Marx and Joshua Rauh of Northwestern University in a study on municipal pensions released earlier this year. With pension costs increasing by 23 percent between 2008 and 2010 -- and facing a $155 million budget shortfall last year -- Baltimore officials enacted a series of modest reforms, including increasing the number of years police officers must work before they can retire from 20 to 25. But the city's public-sector unions, looking to keep the generous benefits (including annuities equal to 60 percent of final salary), are suing to overturn the moves. And the cuts only forestall the inevitable.

Facing even tougher odds is San Diego, which is still struggling with a decade-long pension scandal involving the city's move to divert its share of pension contributions to finance a stadium for its Major League Baseball franchise. The combination of overly generous benefits -- some 487 city employees collect annuities of more than $100,000 a year -- and investments losses have nearly doubled the pension deficit to $2.7 billion. The city paid $229 million in annuity costs this past fiscal year, marking a 48 percent increase over 2009-2010. Those costs accounted for 8.3 percent of the city's budget versus 5.2 in the 2004-2005 fiscal year. San Diego officials are now pushing for a ballot initiative next year to close the pensions to new employees -- and finding themselves in a fierce battle with the city's public sector unions.

Meanwhile in Chicago, deficits for the city's five pensions have increased by 30 percent between 2005 and 2009; the teachers' pension deficit increased by 48 percent during that period alone. New mayor (and President Barack Obama's former chief of staff) Rahm Emanuel now has to wrangle with $15 billion in pension deficits that his predecessor, Richard M. Daley, ignored for nearly all of his two decades in office, all the while battling the city's public-sector union leaders. Those leaders have already won such sweet deals as the ability to buy service credits that they can use to boost their annuity payouts; six union officials now stand to earn an additional $12 million in annuities during their retirement after putting down just $1 million for the privilege.

Municipal pensions are likely underfunded to the tune of $574 billion, according to Novy-Marx and Rauh; this includes a whopping $53 billion pension deficit for both the city and the county of Los Angeles, and an even bigger $122 billion for New York City. Given that the current assets aren't enough to cover all the future costs, cities will eventually have to dip further into their budgets to cover payouts, crowding out spending on public safety, parks, and other activities. Novy-Marx and Rauh estimate that Boston would have to devote 27 percent of projected revenues to covering pension benefits once assets are depleted in 2019; for Philadelphia, whose assets could likely run out in the next four years, it would be 19 percent.

But those numbers are only half the story. Cities, suburbs and school districts are just finally starting to account for billions more in retiree healthcare costs and "Other Postemployment Benefits," for which they usually have no reserves. In Rhode Island, municipal governments have $2 billion in unfunded retiree benefits obligations, according to a state senate report released earlier this year. Taxpayers in Pittsburgh face a $489 million retirement tab (which doesn't include their share of the $906 million in retiree burdens for Allegheny County and its transit authority).

The very same feckless dealmaking between politicians, school districts and public sector unions that have led to the massive state pension insolvencies are also driving the fiscal crises at the local level. Starting in the 1980s, municipalities sweetened payouts through the creation of so-called deferred retirement option programs, or DROPs, in which a government employee forgoes raises and incremental pension contributions in his final years of employment in exchange for a lump-sum payment upon retirement. This resulted in curious situations in which city workers could collect multimillion dollar checks upon retirement -- and still collect six-figure sums. Practices such as "double-dipping," or allowing teachers and other public sector employees to collect annuities and still work for school districts and local governments, have also contributed to the problem. In Chicago, 54 police officers are collecting $2.5 million in annuities and picking up another $2 million in full-time salaries.

Meanwhile, state and local government assessments of their stocks and other investments have been overly optimistic given the historic volatility of the stock market. Local governments took advantage of those inflated assumptions to help boost payments to civil servants while still avoiding paying out those costs directly from budgets. But financial meltdown, along with current economic malaise in which even Fortune 500 companies are socking away cash in low-interest savings accounts, is now forcing municipal governments to admit that the promises weren't even worth the paper on which they were written.

The costs of this Ponzi-scheming aren't borne by local taxpayers alone. State governments, reckoning with their own pension bungling, have to step in to help. Pennsylvania taxpayers shelled out $200 million in local pension relief in 2009 alone; last year, they doled out $5.7 million just to offset Erie County's local pension deficits. Michigan's own state government is taking more direct action. It has seized control of five local governments (including Detroit's stupendously failing school district) over the past two years and could take over 107 more.

States are also bearing local costs through their teachers' pension systems. And this is where things often get worse, because it allows for two of the biggest players in state politics, the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers, to protect the deals that have made teaching the most lucrative profession in the public sector.

In California, school districts have helped boost annuity payouts to teachers and administrators through the practice of spiking, or offering double-digit pay raises. This is one reason why the state's Teachers Retirement System faces a $56 billion deficit. But fixing this problem has proven to be difficult. A proposal to end such pay raises was approved by the state senate but the NEA's Golden State affiliate, along with CalSTRS, has stalled passage of the law in the assembly.

It will take some fierce battles -- like the kinds we saw earlier this year in statehouses in New Jersey and Wisconsin -- just to begin solving this fiscal mess.

Open Season

By George Neumayr

The flailing attacks on Rick Perry multiply as he pulls easily ahead of the Republican field. Journalists had rooted for an exciting figure to parachute into the lackluster race but now probably regret that hope. Perry scares them. He is, by their lights, a "terrifying" critic of the New Deal and Great Society, a "theocrat," a hater of "science," and no "compassionate" conservative.

The same media that portrayed George W. Bush as ideologically dangerous now hold him up as the measure of an acceptable Republican. Rick Perry has managed to make journalists nostalgic for the Bush years. A Perry victory, the Washington Post reports with concern, would "cement the Republican Party's shift away from Bush's approach to a more libertarian, anti-government GOP."

In other words, another "compassionate" conservative from Texas would be tolerable to the chattering class after all, but not a Tea Partier from Texas.

Mitt Romney can count on favorable coverage in the coming months from a media that now sees its mission as "saving America from Rick Perry." Those words come from Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, who calls that an "urgent fight." Perry represents to this media the dreaded continuation and expansion of 2010 Tea Party success, whereas Romney represents a reassuring step back to the safety of establishment Republicanism.

The rumored strategy of Romney against Perry will apparently feed off these media fears. According to Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, "Romney's campaign will argue that Perry is against the veryidea of Social Security and Medicare," and it will use his book Fed Up!to "scare seniors in early-primary states with large retiree populations, such as Florida and South Carolina." Also: "The Romney campaign will argue that Perry repels independents and can't win in key swing states such as Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan -- while Romney can."

And yet if Perry is too conservative for Romney's taste, he is also, on at least one issue, too liberal. Thiessen reports that the Romney campaign "plans to use immigration to drive a wedge between Perry and his conservative base by highlighting Perry's opposition to a border fence and legislation he signed in 2001 allowing the children of illegal immigrants to attend Texas colleges and universities at in-state tuition…. Romney strategists believe immigration will be a devastating issue for Perry with Tea Party Republicans across the country -- especially in important primary states such as Arizona."

Another line of attack will be that Perry is the "anti-government candidate who has spent most of his life in government," says Thiessen. Romney has already rehearsed this one, saying in a speech on Tuesday that "career politicians got us into this mess and they simply don't know how to get us out."

Much of this is likely to fall flat. A scenario in which the Tea Party rushes into Romney's arms over immigration is improbable, particularly if he is at the same time knocking Perry for a dim view of Social Security and Medicare and saying that Perry is unacceptable to independents. The two lines of attack will cancel each other out. Lumping Perry in with career politicians that "got us into this mess" also seems odd, since most Tea Partiers don't associate Perry with the national political class and consider jobs-rich Texas under Perry a contrast to the mess.

Unmentioned in the Thiessen piece is whether Romney will engage Perry on any cultural issues. Perhaps this is an area best avoided by Romney, though one can imagine the media helping him in this regard, casting the formerly pro-choice Mormon as more "mainstream" than the "theocrat" Perry.

The media is certainly itching to address these issues. In a preview of things to come, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller demands to know if a candidate places "fealty" to religion over the "Constitution." What touching concern from Keller for a document liberals have shredded through fealty to secularism.

Most of the Founding Fathers wouldn't have passed Keller's vetting. If Perry is a "theocrat" for thinking that America is one nation under God, so were they. If Perry is "anti-science" for thinking that the world didn't create itself through random processes, so were they. As usual, the media intends to use politically correct name-calling and mau-mauing as its chief mode of covering a conservative candidate. Any stick will do in its quest to save liberal America from Rick Perry.

Actresses and Professors Protest the Pipeline

By Jeffrey Folks

On Tuesday Daryl Hannah was arrested nearthe White House while protesting possible approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.  The Keystone XL project is designed to carry large quantities of oil from Canadian oil sands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.  As such, the Keystone XL project is one of the most important steps America can take toward energy security.  That seems like good reason to approve the pipeline, but environmentalists like Ms. Hannah are determined to block it.

Ms. Hannah is certainly free to express her opinions as she likes, but it seems odd that anyone would oppose construction of a pipeline that would help secure America's energy future by ensuring supplies from a reliable ally like Canada.  It seems odd, but Hannah was not alone at the White House.  She was joined by some 2,000 protesters, 500 of whom have been arrested.  These include Elijah Zarlin, a former senior writer on Obama's 2008 campaign.  Another was Bill McKibben, organizer of 350.org, an online environmental group and resident scholar at Middlebury College.  McKibben is the author of a string of global warming and anti-growth books dating back to 1989.  He, too, expressed support for Obama in 2008 in hopes the presidential candidate would end America's reliance on fossil fuels.

In fact, nearly every environmentalist group in the country has lined up in opposition to the pipeline.  And this despite the fact that the Keystone XL has passed the most extensive environmental review ever conducted for a pipeline project.  The Sierra Club Compass calls the Keystone XL a "dirty tar sands oil monstrosity."  The club's president warns Obama of direpolitical repercussions should the pipeline be approved.  Friends of the Earth leader Erich Pica stated that if Obama approves the pipeline, it will be "open season on the president's record" on the environment.  An official with the Natural Resources Defense Council stressed that approval would be "a dirty legacy for president Obama."

It is not, of course, the pipeline itself that environmental radicals view as "dirty."  It is what it carries -- especially since what it carries comes from the Canadian oil sands.  The environmental lobby has worked overtime to create the impression that energy from the oil sands is "dirtier" than conventional oil, despite the fact that this heavy oil can be refined with no more than 2% additional carbon emissions.

The truth is, it is not the fact that oil sands are "dirty" that upsets greens.  It is that they are plentiful, thus ensuring a vast 50-year supply of cheap and affordable fossil fuel.  It is estimated that Canadian oil sands contain 1.75 trillion barrels of recoverable oil, an amount equal to current global reserves of conventional oil.  The left is determined to block further entry of oil sands production into the U.S. because that production would ensure continued reliance on fossil fuels for decades to come.

As to what might take the place of oil, natural gas, and coal, environmentalists insist that America's needs can be met by a combination of conservation and "sustainable" alternatives (wind and solar).  The fact that wind and solar now supply only 2% of the nation's needs does not seem to trouble them.  Maybe because they are thinking in terms of something like 98% conservation and 2% alternatives.  In other words, an end to practically all transport, commerce, construction, and new development -- as well as cessation of practically all current activities dependent on energy.  No planes, trains, or cars.  No heating or air conditioning.  No manufacturing or transport.  Only green vistas of land returned to wilderness, and lots of yoga.

Nothing will convince the green activist when it comes to the Keystone XL, even the fact that the project has, after exhaustive review and delay, at last received State Departmentenvironmental approval.  (For those who did not realize the State Department was in the game of environmental review, guess again.  With Obama in charge, every regulatory body, from the National Labor Relations Board to the Securities and Exchange Commission, not to mention the federal courts and the EPA, is in the business of environmental review.)

So as not to totally freak out the administration's green supporters, Secretary of State Clinton insisted that the Keystone XL was still a long way from State Department approval.  Obama himself announced that he had nothing to do with the decision.  (He is apparently not aware of the fact that he is Hillary's boss.)  But, sensing the administration might for once decide to place national interest ahead of global warming mythology, environmental radicals have begun beating the drums in the Capitol.  Thus, the arrest of Daryl Hannah.

None of the pipeline's opponents has addressed the fact that the Keystone XL would be in the national interest.  It would, after all, transport reliable supplies of Canadian oil, as much as 400,000 barrels a day, to refineries on the Gulf Coast.  Transportation via underground pipeline is more secure and more environmentally safe than transport via tanker.  And supplies from Canada are more secure, politically and otherwise, than those from the Middle East or Latin America.  The result would be a long-term, stable, and clean source of affordable energy.

An important bonus is the fact that the pipeline would create jobs.  According to TransCanada, the pipeline operator, the project would create an immediate 13,000 jobs in construction and other fields, with an additional 118,000 secondary jobs supporting the pipeline.  It would pump $20 billion into the economy.  And it would lower the long-term cost of fuel for American consumers.

Given the reality that the U.S. will be importing much of its oil for decades to come, isn't it better to get it from a stable ally like Canada than from Venezuela or the Middle East?

Apparently, Ms. Hannah, star of such megahits as Shark Swarm and Kung Ku Killer, doesn't think so.  One is tempted to say that Ms. Hannah should stick to acting, but given her recent film work, maybe that's not such a good idea either.

Obama's Immigration Directive to Face Congressional Hearings

By Elise Cooper

Recently, the Obama administration said it would review the cases of illegal immigrants currently in deportation proceedings.  It has been reported that this directive will affect more than 300,000 illegals.  These "low-priority" offenders, including the elderly, crime victims, and those who have been here since childhood, will be allowed to stay in the United States through a work permit.

This is an unconstitutional power-grab by the president since he does not have the authority to repeal, suspend, or reinterpret federal laws.  He tried to implement his own agenda, going through the back door, doing this while Congress is in recess.  

California Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R) emphasized, "[T]he illegals were designated to be deported and now the president wants to figure out who the good illegals are and separate them from the bad ones."  Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce (R) is one of the original leaders to make sure the states have the inherent authority to enforce the immigration laws.  He told American Thinker that this latest ploy by the president shows that Obama "has no respect for the rule of law.  When you enter this country illegally you are breaking the law.  This shows he has no intention of enforcing the law and has circumvented it.  This is a complete abuse of authority.  The president does not understand that these policies are hurting our nations ability to recover."

Maybe the president should take advice from Vice President Biden, who said, "[T]he number-one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs.  J-O-B-S: jobs."

This latest immigration policy is undermining the ability for American citizens to get jobs and is instead giving preferential treatment to those who did everything wrong.

Congressman Elton Gallegly (R-CA) wishes that the president would understand that people who are trying to feed their families would take fallback jobs, and it is a false premise that illegal immigrants take only jobs that American workers do not want.  Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX) is stronger in his denunciation of this new directive, calling this immigration policy "crazy since Americans are suffering with unemployment hovering nationwide around 10%.  This is a finger in the eye of unemployed Americans.  The goal should be to create jobs for Americans not illegals.  He is displacing American workers at a time when they need jobs the most."

Governor Jan Brewer (R-AZ) sarcastically noted, "We all thought the president had a jobs plan but did not realize it was for illegal aliens.  It will hurt those Americans that would have filled the vacuum of the lower-paying jobs."

Assemblyman Donnelly wants Americans to understand that this presidential directive focuses on violent offenders and looks the other way for minor violators.  It ignores those Americans who are killed or injured by illegal aliens.  He cites the example of a Santa Rosa, California four-year-old who was run down by an illegal immigrant last week.  This man was arrested twice before for driving without a license, since he was unable to obtain it because of his illegal status.  Angrily, Donnelly commented, "These tragedies occur all the time but this one was preventable.  Going back to the Obama Directive, since the illegal originally only committed a misdemeanor he would not have been deported.  I guess we are not going to take people into custody and deport them until they kill someone."

All agreed with the president that immigrants have helped to make America great, but all emphasize that it was legal immigrants.  Haydee Dawson, a member of Arizona's Latino Republican Association, told American Thinker her story.  She is a naturalized citizen from El Salvador.  Her mom came here with a visa, got a job, and applied for residency.  It took three years before she and her brother received approval and were reunited with their parents.  She wants the president to recognize that "there is a right way of doing it.  I am upset that we are rewarding those immigrants for actually breaking the laws of this country.  This is a real slap in my face -- someone who did it the right way."

The states also feel like they were slapped in the face because of the economic costs they will have to endure.  Governor Brewer believes that the president does not understand that this directive "will be absolutely devastating to our economy.  It is just an open invitation for those to come across our border.  We will be bombarded.  Border security must be our first priority.  We keep ignoring the root of the problem.  They will be sucking up our jobs, using our health systems, using our educational systems, and lined up for all the entitlement programs at a time when states are facing huge budget deficits.  If this happens there is no way we can sustain it.  It is the wrong thing to do at a time when states like mine are dealing with the costs and crimes of illegal immigration."

Is there anything that can be done to stop this outrageous executive order?  Governor Brewer is hoping that Congress and the Republican presidential candidates step up to the plate.  She is anticipating in the next few months that "we will hear the Republican candidates speak out on the issues of the border and illegal aliens.  With this executive fiat the president has issued I would think the American public would want to hear from them."  She also wants Congress to take action since "this is another blow to the direction we want to lead our state and our country.  Whatever they decide I will be standing right beside them or behind them."

It appears that she will be able to stand beside them since Gallegly and McCaul will be conducting hearings as soon as Congress reconvenes.  McCaul told American Thinker that he hopes to enact legislation that prevents the president from implementing this directive and will look to see if it is in violation of existing law.  Gallegly, chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Policy, will focus on how the president is selectively enforcing certain laws by picking and choosing.  He wants to demonstrate to "Americans that those the president claims to protect, the most vulnerable in our society, are the ones he is hurting more than anyone.  We need to eliminate the carrots, the incentives, and the rewards for violating the laws.  One of my jobs is to provide information to inform the American people about the real facts, the real numbers, and the real impact.  The lack of laws is not the problem, but rather the lack of enforcement."

Everyone interviewed agreed with Governor Brewer that this policy "is absolutely hypocritical.  I was absolutely flabbergasted and was not sure I heard right what the president was saying.  This whole policy is a step in the wrong direction.  I believe overwhelmingly that the American people don't support this and there will be a backlash.  The American people support the rule of law.  This is just a backdoor amnesty."  At a time when American citizens are hurting due to the record levels of unemployment and foreclosures, the president should be concentrating on enforcing the immigration laws, not breaking them.