Cato Daily Dispatch for October 15, 2002
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Immigration Reform FaltersGovernment Bookkeeping in Shambles
Expanded "Fingerprinting" of Firearms?
Immigration Reform Falters
Congress and the White House have abandoned a bipartisan effort to loosen immigration law this year, prompting Democrats to seize on the issue in a bid to lure Latino voters in the upcoming midterm elections, reports the Los Angeles Times.
The quiet death of the immigration legislation comes even though President Bush had urged passage of a bill to make it easier for certain illegal immigrants to apply for legal residency.
The legislation was attacked by opponents as an amnesty in disguise and supported by proponents as a modest measure to help keep hard-working immigrant families together in the United States.
"The provision fell victim to a crowded congressional calendar, but also to post-9/11 scare-mongering by opponents of immigration," says Dan Griswold, associate director of Cato's Center for Trade Policy Studies. "This debate never had any real connection to fighting terrorism. This is a humane provision that allows people who are residing in the United States and who are legally qualified to stay here to pay a fee to remain in the country while they apply for permanent residency."
Griswold more closely analyzes Mexican migration in a Trade Policy Analysis released today, "Willing Workers: Fixing the Problem of Illegal Mexican Migration to the United States".
Government Bookkeeping in Shambles
Year after year, auditors studying the financial records of federal government departments find that many of them are so disorganized, even chaotic, that the agencies cannot account for tens of billions of dollars, reports The New York Times.
What is more, when many agencies realize that they have made major accounting errors, they simply enter multibillion-dollar balance adjustments, writing off the money.
Chris Edwards, Cato's director of fiscal policy, addressed this issue in a Daily Commentary, "Now It's Time for Government Reform". He writes, "Now that the federal government has cracked down on corporate financial mischief, it should turn attention to its own accounts. Congress has passed a bill it thinks will promote sound corporate bookkeeping and punish business leaders who break the rules. Meanwhile, the financial accounts of many federal agencies are a shambles, and Congress breaks budget rules all the time. Companies such as Enron collapsed under piles of hidden debt. But the government is creating its own crisis by amassing trillions of dollars of unfunded retirement liabilities."
Expanded "Fingerprinting" of Firearms?
Gun control advocates are trying to capitalize on the D.C. sniper incidents to expand government "fingerprinting" of firearms, The Associated Press reports.
Maryland and New York currently require gun retailers to provide police with a casing of a bullet from every handgun sold -- effectively "fingerprinting" the gun in the event it is ever used in a crime. Gun control supporters are calling for that requirement to be expanded to all firearms.
Cato Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies Robert Levy opposes ballistic fingerprinting, arguing, "No one has fully investigated the substantial cost of the proposed program, or whether the resultant price increases will prevent some indivduals from purchasing guns for self defense.
"Moreover," he says, "ballistic markings are easy to alter. They would not help in tracking any of the 250 million guns currently outstanding. And they would apply only to new guns--not the guns acquired on the resale market or stolen by criminals. Most important, ballistics tracking comes very close to mandated gun registration, which gun rights advocates justifiably fear as a first step toward confiscation."
Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org
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