Grover Norquist says ending birthright citizenship equals a tax increase

http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2012...-tax-increase/

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist believes Americans could effectively start paying a tax on having babies should conservative immigration advocates have their way on ending the right for automatic citizenship for babies born on U.S. soil.

“This is a tax on every child being born,” Norquist said on Monday during a conference call set by the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan think tank. “It solves no problems and instead creates all sorts of problems and costs in terms of Americans.”

The foundation released a report on Monday that shows that changing the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which guarantees U.S. citizenship to most American-born babies, would cost parents about $600 in government fees plus a similar amount in legal fees to validate their babies’ citizenship.

The federal government could collect nearly $2.4 billion per year with an estimate of 4 million annual births.

Advocacy groups that favor lower immigration and some Republicans have long proposed ending birthright citizenship. The mastermind of the tough immigration laws in Alabama and Arizona, Kris Kobach, who recently endorsed GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has supported this measure.

Supporters argue the change would deter undocumented immigrants from moving into the United States. But the report issued on Monday challenges this argument.

Undocumented parents typically don’t benefit from their child’s American citizenship because “if the parent entered the U.S. unlawfully, the parent must depart the United States to obtain an immigration visa, and the parent’s departure triggers a 10-year bar from the U.S.,” which cannot be waived, according to the study.

Norquist on Monday deemed the conservatives’ call to end birthright citizenship a “non-solution” arguing that Republicans would be better off by embracing an overhaul of the country’s immigration system and stopping this “political game.”

Hmm, this is the same person that came up with the idea of a no-tax pledge and made House Republicans sign such a thing against raising taxes to the rich...It was basically one man's pledge vs. the majority of the people calling for additional taxes on the 1%...

Talk about power.