Via Breitbart:
Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) told Boston’s conservative radio host Howie Carr on Wednesday that the political momentum is starting to turn against the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill.
When Carr asked the senator if this process behind the push for this bill is the “same thing as Obamacare” where “we have to pass it so we can read it,” Sessions replied: “Absolutely, it really is.”
“That is exactly what it is,” Sessions said. “They’re selling the sizzle. They’re selling the smell. And it’s a shoe leather instead of a steak.”
Carr said that though everyone can agree that the immigration system is “broken,” Americans should not support the Gang of Eight bill because it would make the system “worse.” Instead, Carr argued people should support a yet-to-be-introduced solution that actually solves the problems at hand and this issue does not need to be an all-or-nothing deal with the Gang of Eight bill.
“That is exactly correct,” Sessions responded. “And Professor [George] Borjas at Harvard, the leading expert on immigration and labor, has made so clear in his work that basically what he concludes is any benefit to this economy is at the expense of lower income workers’ salaries going down.”
When Carr asked if Gang of Eight supporters had the votes to pass the bill in the House or Senate, Sessions said that they are claiming they have it in the Senate. “But I think the tide is beginning to turn,” Sessions said. “A lot of people, like myself, I thought the bill was better than it is based on what I hear the proponents say. But as we examine it, we realize that this is going to be a disaster. It’s going to be a disaster for enforcement, it’s going to be a disaster for our budget, it’s going to be a disaster for the wages of American workers, it’s going to add to our financial deficit, Social Security and Medicare are going to be impacted over the long term by trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities and these numbers are not going to be disputed if we go forward.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a Gang of Eight member, recently said the bill could not pass the House as is, a sign it is in serious trouble. On Sean Hannity’s radio program on Wednesday, Rubio said the bill “quite frankly, may struggle to pass the Senate” because it does not effectively enforce border security as originally promised.