Jim DeMint’s World View Slammed By Top Conservatives After ‘Shoddy’ Immigration Study

Jim DeMint‘s world view has been slammed by conservative leaders in his first important event on the national stage after taking the helm of the Heritage Foundation. DeMint is the former U.S. Senator from South Carolina who spent his political career attacking gay people, single mothers, minorities, and immigrants as “less than,” and as somehow not fit for America.

“The conservative Heritage Foundation is launching a new campaign to sink immigration reform by claiming it will explode the deficit thanks to increased social services for undocumented immigrants,” Talking Points Memo reported today:

On Monday, the think tank debuted a new study by Robert Rector and Jason Richwine claiming the bill would cost $6.3 trillion over the lifetime of the 11 million undocumented immigrants who could potentially gain legal status through bipartisan legislation under consideration in the Senate.

“We contend … that amnesty is unfair to those who come here lawfully and those who are waiting, it will cost the American taxpayer trillions of dollars over the next several decades, and it will make our immigration problems worse,” Heritage president Jim DeMint said at a press conference debuting the study.

 

Now, in his new home at Heritage, his peers, “top fiscal conservatives from Americans for Tax Reform, the Cato Institute, the Kemp Foundation and the American Action Network,” and “even the author of Heritage’s 2006 study,” are taking DeMint’s Heritage Foundation “to the woodshed for its immigration report that sees trillions in cost and no benefits from immigration reform,” according to none other than the radical right wing Tea Party blogger, the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin.

Rubin herself, whose general view of almost anything Democratic or progressive or liberal is it is from hell, whose columns tend to constantly reflect her hatred of President Barack Obama, slammed DeMint’s immigration report.

“These are longtime allies of Heritage and promoters of free market capitalism who are witnessing the intellectual bastardization of a once great institution to adopt a cause that is inherently unconservative, namely opposition to immigration,” Rubin writes:

Josh Cullings of ATR [Americans for Tax Reform] said that while Heritage was a “treasured ally,” its work was a rehash of a flawed 2007 study that ignored all the benefits of immigration reform. Cato’s Alex Nowrasteh was even more outspoken saying “how disappointed” he was that Heritage abandoned conservative dynamic scoring (i.e. the impact a piece of legislation’s impact on the economy). He accused Heritage of not following years of their own work, which has striven to look at the impact on behavior of changes resulting from reforming the tax code and other innovations. “They ignored GDP, they ignored productivity,” he said in reeling off the list of items in the Gang of 8 legislation left out of Heritage. Cato’s study, which did use dynamic scoring, found that immigration reform would add $1.5 trillion in growth over ten years while forcing out 11 million immigrants (the Heritage solution) would lower GDP by $2.6 trillion over ten years.

The prize for candor, though, went to American Action Forum’s Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who stated flatly, “It really misleads.” Without dynamic scoring, H1-B visas, a guest worker program, and the other economic pluses from immigration reform and with a load of ludicrous assumptions (e.g. everyone would qualify for government benefits and take them) Heritage, he said, “gets a really big number.” He continued in describing the Heritage view of immigrants, “There is no American dream. They start in poverty. They end in poverty. Their kids are in poverty.”

Most compelling was Jimmy Kemp, son of the late congressman Jack Kemp, who (in a gravelly voice that sounded a little like his dad’s) was damning. “My dad was a significant supporter of immigration reform.” Objecting strenuously to the idea that immigration reform weakens the economy by adding workers, he exclaimed, “People are not a drain on society.” Saying it was “surprising they took a static approach,” he said bluntly, “You can’t lead from a place of fear.”

While I applaud these conservative leaders, including Rubin, I feel compelled to ask, where were you all when then-Senator DeMint in 2011 refused to attend CPAC because GOProud was there? Where were they when, in 2009, when Jim DeMint said a gay president would be “immoral“? Where were they when Senator DeMint objected to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act? And where were they when DeMint talked about banning LGBT people and unwed pregnant mothers from teaching in schools?

Jim DeMint was at the center of the “intellectual bastardization” of the Republican party, giving support to the rise of the Tea Party, but no one seemed to mind then.

Better late than never.

Perhaps DeMint’s last gasp shows that the anti-gay, anti-women, anti-immigrant 61-year old Tea Partier from South Carolina will do anything to stop immigration reform:

 

 

Related:

Don’t Let The Door Hit You… DeMint’s Resignation Celebrated By All Sides

Anti-Gay Sen. Jim DeMint Resigns For Million-Dollar Salary As Head Of Heritage Think Tank

DeMint To Obama: Stop Promoting Human Rights Protections For LGBT Communities Outside The United States

On Our Radar: Senator Jim DeMint’s Anti-Gay Palmetto Freedom Forum