Lack of border security can lead to Social Security.

No wonder the Congressional Democrats applauded President Bush when in his January State of the Union address he stated “Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security…”

Apparently they had another idea on how to solve the crisis.


The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment -- even if the job was obtained through forged or stolen documents.

"There was a felony they were committing, and now they can't be prosecuted. That sounds like amnesty to me," said Sen. John Ensign, the Nevada Republican who offered the amendment yesterday to strip out those provisions of the immigration reform bill. "It just boggles the mind how people could be against this amendment."

The Ensign amendment was defeated on a 50-49 vote.

"We all know that millions of undocumented immigrants pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for years and sometimes decades while they work to contribute to our economy," said Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican.


Work to contribute to our economy? You mean by lowering the wage scale while the employers get wealthier and the middle class is slowly whittled away? That’s the equivalent of the “contribution” my neighbor’s dog left on my lawn the other night.


"The Ensign amendment would undermine the work of these people by preventing lawfully present immigrant workers from claiming Social Security benefits that they earned before they were authorized to work in our community," he said. "If this amendment were enacted, the nest egg that these immigrants have worked hard for would be taken from them and their families."


Part of the immigration reform would call for a substantial fine for those who came into this country illegally. Sounds to me like the “nest egg” could be used to pay those penalties.

Just a thought.


Mr. Ensign was among 44 Republicans and five Democrats who voted to block such payouts.


The 11 Republicans who voted against the Ensign amendment?

The usual suspects:

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)