Politicians' demagoguery may cost innocents

Here's the future of Pennsylvania:

1) A person loses their job and applies for unemployment benefits.

2) Person is told they need a state-issued ID before getting benefits. But they don't have it because their wallet or purse was stolen.

3) Person tries replacing the ID, but this requires a Social Security card.

4) Person tries getting their Social Security card, but this requires a birth certificate.

5) Person tries getting their birth certificate, but this requires the ID - which was stolen.

6) Go back to step #3. Repeat and rinse.

Why?

Because the Republican-led Pennsylvania Senate recently passed a bill to implement these steps just to make it harder to receive much-needed benefits.

But the poor or unemployed - who need benefits more - are more likely to lack an ID in the first place.

Why did senators pass this bill? Republican Sen. Joseph Scarnati says his bill is designed to target undocumented immigrants. But the rules that were in place before the bill passed already did that! Scarnati has failed to produce any instance of an undocumented immigrant receiving public benefits in Pennsylvania.

Yet he sticks by his excuses. He thinks that'll get him votes, I guess.

The only thing this bill will accomplish is making it much, much harder for citizens to get benefits. But politicians don't care about that.

The only American place that already has a rule like this in force is Colorado. But a year after it passed, Colorado reported that it had spent millions of taxpayer dollars to implement it but could not find one instance of it saving any money.

But I guess that doesn't matter when making political hay is more important, huh?

(Source: http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2009/05/antiimmigrant_myths_foster_cos.html)