Big Red Car here, y’all. Going to be rainy in the ATX. Dreary kind of day.

Did you catch the Emperor’s — ooops, I meant to say “President’s” — rant on immigration last night?

The Big Red Car was not impressed. Let me share a few thoughts.

Faux passion and timing

The President, who is still an accomplished speaker (better liar), spoke with great passion about the issue of immigration. A cynic might be tempted to ask:

Where was that passion when the Democrats enjoyed control of the Senate, the House and the White House? Where was the passion and where was the action?

Where was that passion in the lead up to the recent elections in which he asserted the election was about his policies? Where was the passion and where was the action?

The answer to these questions, dear friends, is the passion is totally manufactured and thus the descriptor “faux” passion. It was a performance just like much of the President’s speeches.

Flip flopper extraordinaire

As many know the President is a learned Constitutional lawyer and for years has asserted that the path to resolving immigration issues is legislation. He has clearly stated that he does not possess the power to make such changes unilaterally. More than twenty times he has made such exertions. The Big Red Car believed him. [You can really be naive sometimes, Big Red Car. Wake up!]

While we have become quite anesthetized to the President’s words not matching his deeds, this instance is particularly egregious due to the clarity of his statements, the great number of his statements and the magnitude of his proposed changes.

The President is a liar — perhaps more diplomatically said, he has a problem staying within the guardrails of the truth.

Which President are we to listen to? The one who says he cannot unilaterally modify our immigration laws? Or the one who says you can keep your insurance policy, doctor?

The answer, dear friends, is neither. He is not a man to be believed or taken at his word about anything. A very harsh but fair criticism, no?

The plan

The plan itself is pure nonsense. It is founded on the lawful conduct of folks who have already demonstrated contempt for the law. They are already criminals.

The silly notion that the five year residency requirement will not be forged, gamed and lied about is silly. Of course, people who routinely obtain fraudulent documents are going to do what they already know how to do — get more fraudulent documents.

When The Boss had a company which employed manual labor once upon a time, workers would show up with social security cards that were printed on genuine stock with legitimate social security numbers. This worked until the Department of Labor notified the company — typically six to eighteen months later — that no such person existed or they had died at age three twenty five years earlier.

The plan will not work because it will be riddled with the same fraud that has created the problem.

What is Plan B because this plan is not very realistic.

The remaindermen

What is to happen to the folks who have been here less than five years? These remaindermen will want some of the pie, no?

Will they lie about their residency? The cynical Big Red Car says bet the ranch on that happening.

The Big Red Car also thinks the administration is likely to swallow many of those lies — close enough is good enough, right?

Is the plan to deport these folks? Not bloody likely.

The honest immigrants

This amnesty program is all about the criminals who have invaded our country. It is not the legal immigration system that is being reformed. It is the illegal system that is being changed.

Having had the Reagan amnesty and the Obama amnesty, does anyone think illegal immigrants will now stop coming to our country?

They will come in anticipation of yet another amnesty when the numbers again build up to staggering levels. What would reasonably dissuade their coming to the US? What would deter future amnesties? The answer is nothing!

So what of those applicants who have applied for legal immigration and are simply standing in line waiting their time? What is the fairness of allowing the illegal immigrants to cut to the front of the line? The lawless are served first while the lawful are ignored. And the underlying justification for the entire program is to embrace fairness?

Oh, sayeth the Big Red Car, that sucks.

The tax implications

The President makes much of the fact that the new class of now legal immigrants will have to “…pay their taxes…”. Uhh, Mr. President, incomes at that level have no real taxes to pay. They pay payroll taxes and sales taxes which they were already paying but they don’t have enough income to pay income taxes. Pssst, Mr. President, they receive a check. They get money back. They don’t pay income taxes.

Conversely, these now legal immigrants will put added pressure on the social safety network and public services. The implications in Texas alone for additional schools to educate these folks — children — is enormous. It is a huge financial liability which would be avoided if illegal immigrants were simply dealt with in accordance with nation’s existing laws.

Constitutional and separation of powers issues

The President was clear in his innumerable prior assertions that he did not have the power to do this and he could not do it and he would not do it. Alas, he has had a change of heart and now the Constitutional scholar has said: “Ooops, I guess I do have the authority to do this.” He is either a liar or an incompetent Constitutional scholar — your choice.

Contrary to the President’s assertions, “impatience” with the Congress (which he controlled for the first two years of his presidency) is not addressed in the Constitution. Just because the Congress is not the monkey at the end of his organ grinder’s chain does not mean he receives extra-Constitutional powers and can trample the separation of powers and act unilaterally.

In fact, folks would argue that this stalemate is exactly why the Founding Fathers insisted on checks and balances so that no President would become a King. The Founders did not like Kings and George Washington specifically refused to become the American King. The system is supposed to create some friction and, yes, some impatience.

Are we to be a nation which sends its representatives to Washington to make laws to be faithfully executed by the executive branch and to be adjudicated by the judicial branch or are we a nation which empowers a single man to enforce what laws strike his fancy, to ignore laws that do not please him personally or politically and to enact laws by decree when it suits his fancy?

Of course not.

Let’s not disregard the election

We have a new Congress to be seated in January. The Republicans swept the Senate, added to their margin in the House, snagged some more governorships (Illinois — the President’s home state, the People’s Republic of Maryland, Florida to mention a few juicy ones) and rolled even more statehouses. The map is looking pretty damn Republican just now.

The President famously said, in likely the worst timed political utterance ever, that his policies were on the ballot. Well, Mr. President, a big majority of the country took you at your word and they sent you a message. Your policies are not very popular. Sorry.

Please listen to the will of the people. Listen, Mr. President, and only then act.

The border

The entire immigration issue is caused by the high porosity of our borders with particular note of the southern border where the Big Red Car lives in Texas.

Not a word was said about fixing the biggest problem with illegal immigration, the freakin’ border! If you need a fence around the White House to keep the crazies out, why not a fence at the border to keep the illegal immigrants out? Why not? The only reasonable explanation is that the President doesn’t choose to keep them out.

The economy

Let’s end on an important note. No change in immigration is going to be without its impact on the economy. The economy still fails to grow at a reasonable rate given our supposed “recovery.” This bringing out of the shadows five million illegals (the number is likely to be more like ten million) is going to depress wages and continue the decline of average family incomes into the future for a decade or more. It has taken more than six years to even get back to the level of jobs that existed when President Obama put his hand on the Bible the first time around. Six freakin’ years of anemic job creation and sliding family incomes.

If you are a man who works with your muscles, you are screwed. Five to ten million low skill, low wage earning workers suddenly legalized will be eating from your chili bowl for the next ten years. Good luck.

For all of the reasons enunciated above, this is a very suspect and ill advised policy by a desperate President in the last two years of his failed presidency. Others may not agree and the Big Red Car encourages them to share their views. This issue is not personal, it is about policy. The faux passion of our faux President.

But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Be nice to a wage earner this weekend.