Legal Commentary

Bloggers agree: Little chance for immigration bill, and they hate the VAT

By David Kopel

?Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says ?we?re going to have comprehensive immigration reform now.? Top political bloggers don?t see it.? So begins the National Journal?s write-up of this week?s blogger poll. Seventy percent of the Left and 78% of the Right called enactment of a comprehensive bill either ?very? or ?somewhat? unlikely. I was in the ?very? group: ?As the passage of ObamaCare showed, the Reid-Pelosi team has extraordinary talent at pushing unpopular legislation through Congress. But it seems unlikely that there will be enough swing-seat Democrats, who are already in enough trouble, willing to change their own chances of re-election from ?difficult? to ?nearly impossible.??

The second question asked the bloggers if they were open to supporting some form of a VAT. Only 1/3 of the Left and 1/6 of the Right expressed openness. I was part of that small minority: ?If and only if accompanied by substantial, immediate fiscal reform, such as a balanced budget amendment, major entitlement reform, a large reduction in the percentage of the population who are consumers rather than payers of income tax revenues, and an iron-clad program to pay down the federal debt.?

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on April 15, 2010 (boomark / email).