You'd think he wouldn't have such persistent trouble with the "illegal" part of that.
Bad enough, as far as "the Rev" Al Sharpton is concerned, that Republicans want to rein in entitlement spending before America morphs into Greece and brings down much the world with it. (video clip after page break)
Here's Sharpton on his MSNBC "PoliticsNation" show Friday night, talking with Florida Democratic Party chair Rod Smith and "HuffPost Live" host Alicia Menendez about President Obama's end-run around Congress on the DREAM Act --
SHARPTON: Now Alicia, while the president is moving in this that all of us agree is politically wise but is also something he has a core belief in and has always talked about, congressional Republicans are pounding the president's immigration, uh, bi-, decision and they're coming with legislation, for example, yesterday they pushed two bills, one that had 11 co-sponsors and it would require the Department of Homeland Security (Sharpton quotes from story in The Hill) '(to) make sure illegal immigrants don't receive Medicare, Social Security or food stamps.'
So, not only do you have the president making an affirmative step, you have Republicans in the Congress that are continuing to go after a very, very regressive kind of policy on human levels. We talking about Social Security, Medicare, food stamps. We talking about people that need help here.
MENENDEZ: Rev., it's even worse than that. They're addressing a problem that does not exist. There are so few incidences of what they're suggesting that I'm glad this is what they are putting their effort towards.
Contrary to what Menendez claims, Social Security fraud by illegal immigrants is a huge problem, according to an op-ed written by GOP Rep. Elton Gallegly of California, titled "Fraud by illegal immigrants destroying children's lives" and published by The Hill in April.
"The SSA Actuary estimates that 75 percent of illegal immigrants obtain and use a fraudulent Social Security number," Gallegly wrote. "The millions of victims include --
-- a 9-year-old boy who was denied Medicaid because wages were reported on his Social Security number.
-- a 13-year-old girl who was denied as a dependent on her family's tax return because she supposedly made too much money.
-- an 11-year-old girl and a 13-year-old girl whose Social Security numbers are being used by multiple people for work authorization.
Gallegly cited a Carnegie Mellon CyLab survey finding that children are 51 times more likely to become victims of identity theft than adults.
Liberals sigh in response -- if only illegals stole Social Security numbers from dead people, no one would get hurt.
Menendez's claim about the alleged non-existence of food stamp fraud is equally ludicrous. As for Medicare abuse, little incentive exists when illegals receive health coverage through Medicaid.
Did you catch how Sharpton initially began describing Obama's immigration plan as a "bill"? Sharpton caught himself and referred to Obama's "decision" instead, seeing how Obama circumvented Congress and decided to enact law by himself.
