Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren shocked most observers, including her New England neighbor and fellow White House hopeful Bernie Sanders, when she announced the $52 trillion price tag for her Medicare for All proposal. Sanders’ plan for essentially the same universal coverage would come in at a comparatively modest $32 trillion.
Despite the mind-numbing costs, Warren, with a straight face, said her proposal would not increase taxes on the middle class “by one penny,” a point disputed by many. But most alarming was Warren’s lack of compassion when she brushed off the large numbers of working Americans who would lose jobs under her plan.
It’s not Warren’s only unsound proposition. Her promise to decriminalize illegal border crossings and defang interior enforcement would lead to endless migratory waves from all the world’s corners with major societal consequences on domestic employment, health care, education and population growth.
In recent years, erasing the border has become an increasingly popular goal among elites. In fact, Congress has repeatedly demonstrated more concern about Syria’s border than the shared U.S. border with Mexico where neglect has festered for decades. With only token resistance, the U.S. has ceded border control to criminal operations, including the Sinaloa Cartel, that wreak havoc along and inside Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California.
Last month, President Donald Trump defended the United States’ troop withdrawal from northern Syria by saying that “it’s not our border” and that “we shouldn’t be losing lives over it.” Congressional Democrats and many Republicans roundly condemned the president. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell objected forcefully to President Trump’s action. In a Washington Post op-ed, McConnell called the troop withdrawal “a grave strategic mistake.” McConnell said that pulling out of Syria leaves the U.S. homeland more dangerous and encourages our terrorist enemies.
If only McConnell and his congressional colleagues were concerned about the southwest border crisis, where the drug war is ongoing, with powerful cartels pushing their deadly products stateside. Why Congress continues to ignore the mounting chaos at the southern border is a question Americans should be asking of their elected representatives. Acting Citizenship and Immigration Services director Ken Cuccinelli said that savvy northern Mexico cartel bosses - “the most evil, vicious, awful people in the western hemisphere” - have turned the border “into a toll booth.”
Experts on the front line describe how the cartels have taken over. Jackson County Sheriff Andy Louderback explained that every minute of every day cartel lords perpetrate human and drug trafficking, among their many criminal activities. They also are responsible for a record 33,341 murders last year alone in Mexico that are a signature method of maintaining control over their methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine and heroin distribution centers in key metroplex areas, including Phoenix, Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago. Other local authorities concur. Otero County, New Mexico Sheriff David Black said that lax enforcement has given the cartels “the green light” to continue their deadly criminal behavior.
Yet Congress remains mostly mum about inadequate enforcement, especially as it applies to asylum seekers traveling with minor children, who the cartels are particularly adept at manipulating. While some border security improvements have been initiated, others have remained in limbo since the Secure Fence Act of 2006.
But even excluding the cartels’ deadly dominance, open borders is a horrible, indefensible policy. The Census Bureau predicts that if the status quo remains, by 2060 U.S. population will hit an unmanageable 404 million, up from today’s 330 million. If Warren and other candidates who champion open borders get their way, over the next five decades, today’s population of 330 million people is likely to approach a nightmarish 500 million.
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact Joe at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.
