John Shadegg: Star Pupil at the Hayworth School of Campaigning?

One can only hope that Shadegg keeps serving up BP fastballs like this to the Lord campaign...

Congressman John Shadegg (R-Launderer) is now attributing his opposition to the recently-passed (by the House anyway) economic stimulus package because some of the proposed tax rebates might go to undocumented aliens who dared to work, pay income taxes, and file a return.

Now, I'm not exactly a fan of the proposal (it helps retail businesses more than it helps real people and its effects are short-term, not long-term), but he absolutely opposes an effort to mitigate the effects of the burgeoning recession in the U.S. because it could give some undocumented aliens some of their own money?

Yup, that's right - the tax rebates are just prepayments of refunds, essentially; they will reduce the following year's refund/increase the amount owed for each recipient.

And the ever-vigilant John Shadegg detected the harm in giving hardworking people the money that is theirs (whether or not they're in the U.S. legally, they earned the money), so he tried to make sure that no one would be helped.

Even if stealing the tax money of a few undocumented immigrants was an ethical activity (it's not), are there so many that qualify (by paying taxs of all things - what scofflaws! ;) ) that the numbers justify blocking the whole thing?

Of course, this is the guy who left his constituents in the lurch, campaigning for John McCain in South Carolina while Paradise Valley residents dealt with poison coming out of their faucets and one of the guys who voted against HOPE.

Why do I have the suspicion that it's people in general who are on his hit list, and immigrants are just a cover story for his votes and [in]actions?

I guess that with JD Hayworth exiled to the nether regions of the right-wing talk radio, AZ's Republicans need a candidate with a with a campaign platform plank that says "blame brown people for everything." Must be in their state party's bylaws or something. :))

Hope that tactic works as well for Shadegg in 2008 as it did Hayworth in 2006.

Stacy at AZ CongressWatch has most (or all?) of Shadegg's press release here; the Phoenix Business Journal has a story constructed from that press release here.

Later!