No offense to the CBO, but their numbers are not based in reality. It’s not their fault, it’s because of the way they must compute the numbers with the assumptions they are given. Flashback to the selling of Obamacare, we were told, by the President and the CBO, how premiums would go down. Not to belabor the point, but every other prediction of Obamacare turned out to be the exact opposite. The Gang of Eight’s S.744 is no exception. It’s deja-vu all over again. Skipping the cost issue for a moment, the bill does not stop the flow of illegals. According to the CBO assessment, the bill . . .

• WILL NOT stop illegal immigration – Despite promises of a secure border, the bill would slow future illegal immigration by only 25 percent. In the next couple of decades, that means 7.5 million new illegal immigrants.
• WILL drive down wages – For legal American workers, the bill would drive down their average wages. And the outfit that says they’re looking out for working people, driving down their average wages is not a concern of the SEIU. Their priority lies in increasing dues-paying membership from the illegals. Which explains why they are heavily ($2 Million in grants) involved in the Obamacare Health Care Exchange enrollment process. LA County AFL-CIO, $1 Million grant. Their annual budget, with 15 employees is $3 Million. Quid pro quo and community organizing in one sweet package.

Cool, ya with me so far? The cost issue is just as bad. The bill will burden taxpayers with trillions of dollars in welfare and entitlement costs for the newly legalized immigrants under amnesty.  Heritage’s Robert Rector explains:

S.744 provides only a temporary delay in eligibility to welfare and entitlements. Over time, S.744 makes all 18.5 million eligible for nearly every government program, including: Obamacare, 80 different welfare programs, Social Security and Medicare. When this occurs, spending will explode, but nearly all the real costs do not appear in the CBO score.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, explained how the Gang of Eight purposefully hid the true costs of the bill:

The bill’s drafters relied on the same scoring gimmicks used by the Obamacare drafters to conceal its true cost from taxpayers and to manipulate the CBO score. There is a reason why eligibility for the most expensive federal benefits was largely delayed outside the 10-year scoring window: to mislead the public. As Ranking Member of the Budget Committee, I asked CBO to provide a long-term estimate. Sadly, CBO did not provide the long-term estimate as requested. As a result, the score effectively conceals some of the biggest long-term costs to taxpayers contained in this legislation, including providing illegal immigrants with Medicaid, food stamps, and cash welfare. Some members of Congress are already pushing efforts to expedite this eligibility.

The assumptions that these illegals will boost the economy are flawed when you consider their education level and that of the chain migration that follows. Their education level is a far cry from those under STEM (sciences, technology, engineering, mathematics), which the Democrat controlled Senate rejected.

According to Sen. Sessions . . .

CBO did not provide enough information to assess the assumptions it made about the educational background of illegal immigrants and thus their methodology may be substantially flawed. An accurate analysis would acknowledge that half of that population does not have high school degrees, and is therefore more likely to receive far more in government support than they will pay in the form of taxes. For every dollar a low-income illegal immigrant might pay in either taxes or payroll contributions, he or she could easily receive two dollars back from the government in the form of public assistance for their household. It defies logic and common sense for anyone to suggest there is not an enormous cost in choosing to provide welfare to those who are currently not eligible for these benefits.

As in Obamacare, when you rush into a major piece of legislation, you don’t get what you expect. The very fact that a “Gang of Eight” is ostensibly running the show should be the red flag right there. I’m for a gang of a hundred. ALL our Senators, working in the open on the floor of the Senate chamber, debating and hammering out every step of whatever ‘comprehensive’ immigration reform means. Doing what can be done, one step at a time. Starting with securing the borders, and turning back illegals.

As it is now, Sen. Sessions says “this bill guarantees three things: amnesty, increased welfare costs, and lower wages for the U.S. workforce. It would be the biggest setback for poor and middle-class Americans of any legislation Congress has considered in decades.”