President: No Back Taxes for Illegals

In case you missed the news buried at the end of last night's post about Blogger problems, the President asked that the provisions he supported last year, that illegal aliens be required to pay back taxes as a requirement for "regularization," be removed from the pending bill. Senator Kennedy had included that requirement in the bill.

Mickey Kaus: Read My Flips: No Back Taxes!

I'd sure like to be an illegal alien and get to skip paying my taxes...why don't American citizens have that privilege? It's ludicrous.

Senator Jeff Sessions writes "Immigration Bill is Worse Than You Think" and points out that, among other things, employers of illegal aliens will also receive amnesty for cheating on their taxes. (Update: The Sessions article actually appears to be from May 2006.)

The President, in his desire to treat aliens "without amnesty but without animosity," not only engages in a falsehood -- I won't go into what is or isn't amnesty here, see RedState's "10 Key Myths About the Amnesty Agreement" -- but he seems to have a perverse desire to stir up animosity toward illegal aliens and those who enable them, including politicians. I am deeply, deeply disappointed in our President. Why is it that his "compassionate conservatism" is extended toward lawbreakers but not our nation's hardworking citizens?

As Senator Sessions says, the bill demonstrates "a lack of respect for the American people."

I...am...so...frustrated!!

For more, see Mark Steyn's great column, "Z Visa Stands for Zellout." Steyn is a legal immigrant to the United States so his perspective on the topic is always particularly interesting.

Update: Ed Morrissey, who has been much more open to the immigration bill than most conservatives, on the Bush Administration dropping the requirement that illegal aliens pay back taxes:

"This is a huge mistake. It's one thing (and not a good thing) to put illegal immigrants ahead of those waiting in line legally to enter our country. It's another entirely to put them ahead of US citizens. Should we declare an overall amnesty on back taxes? If not, then why do illegals get preferential treatment?"

Ed is also concerned about the requirement, linked here Friday, that waives background checks if they cannot be completed in one day. There are legal immigrants who have waited years for their paperwork to be processed. How could background checks for massive numbers of people be completed in a single day?

Ed asks of the background checks: "Does that mean that we have effectively eliminated them? Will we be giving Z-visas to MS-13 gangsters?"

Or, one might ask, terrorists?