Here are my observations and opinions on some of the news.
THOSE “REMITTANCES” TO MEXICO – About 17 years ago, while living in Flagstaff, Arizona, I was struck by the line of Mexicans at a customer service counter in the super market nearly every time I shopped. Inquiring with the clerk, I learned that they were sending cash remittances home to Mexico using the Western Union money transfer system.
I recall doing a little research on remittances for an op-ed I was writing at the time. I had heard about immigrants sending money home to relatives, but I had no idea – call me naïve – that those residing in Arizona alone sent $1 billion back to Mexico that year. Approximately $15 billion from the United States.
With all of the talk about negotiations over NAFTA and the suggestion that the Trump administration might consider taxing remittances as a means to pay for the border wall, I decided to take a fresh look at remittances.
Last year, about $27 billion was sent to Mexico by an estimated two-thirds of the immigrants residing in the U.S. Migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean sent home some $69 billion in 2016 according to central bank reports.
Obviously concerned, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto recently said, “We must assure the free flow of remittances … an invaluable contribution to national development and indispensable for millions of Mexican families.”
HAVE YOU HEARD that the president might, I repeat, just might consider not spending all of the discretionary funds he recently reluctantly approved in the $1.3 trillion spending bill? You will recall that the GOP was forced to accept an increase in discretionary spending in exchange for much needed defense funding.
There’s a little-known feature in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 that permits the president to not spend discretionary funds though they have been appropriated.
While the Dems would cry that he is reneging on the spending deal, it was the Dems who used their leverage with the 60-vote filibuster rule to bring in more non-defense spending. Bill Clinton was the last president to propose such rescissions.
Republicans in Washington are being attacked by their supporters, including me in this blog, for passing that budget monstrosity even though it was necessary to get much needed fund for defense.
If they get serious and prepare for battle with the left, the GOP could possibly restore the faith we placed in the “all-Republican” Washington.
