Ensign Amendment to Immigration bill defeated

I am astonished that 50 of our nation’s allegedly most gifted legislators could be so stone-cold stupid as to vote down the Ensign Amendment today as reported in the Washington Post. The Amendment would have barred illegal aliens from getting credit for the time they worked here in the US illegally when applying for Social Security benefits after they get the citizenship grant that members of the left and the deluded right seem intent on giving them.

Just to make it clear what the Amendment was looking to prevent, let’s say we have an illegal alien who was smuggled across the border 5 years ago at age 50. This so-called “reform” bill gets passed and Mr. Illegal signs right up for his slap on the wrist so he can get in line for citizenship. He’s 55. Eight years from now, he completes the process and becomes a US Citizen at the age of 63. Four years later he retires with Social Security benefits at the age of 67. So, how long has he worked, so far as his benefits are concerned? The Amendment said he should not be allowed to claim the 5 years he worked illegally which would mean his benefits would be computed on 12 years of work. Without that Amendment, the bill says he’ll get to add in the 5 years for a total of 17. That’s 5 additional years where no verifiable documentation exists that he paid anything in the way of taxes, let alone into Social Security.

Is that fair? I sure as hell don’t get to claim an additional 5 years of benefit accrual with no documentation, and that’s just an example, folks. It could be a lot more than that.

The mind-boggling part is that this list of Senators don’t apparently get that. It’s so cut-and-dried a fairness issue I believe my daughter’s pre-school class would be able to see that’s it’s unfair but these supposed giants of legislation can’t. Democrats voting to kill the amendment I get. After all, a Republican proposed it, so it’s the default position for them to vote against it. The Republicans who voted against it, however, are far less understandable. AllahPundit has the list:

Brownback (R-KS)
Chafee (R-RI)
DeWine (R-OH)
Graham (R-SC)
Hagel (R-NE)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Voinovich (R-OH)

You guys who have tight election contests coming up in November are making it tough to root for you. *cough* DeWine *cough*