Democrat Vote Buying "Stimulus" Bill to Give Tax "Credits" to Illegal Aliens?

No requirement for a valid Social Security number. Why not save postage and just send them a certificate of citizenship and a voter registration card along with the check?

In yesterday's report on the Hogzilla stimulus bill, we cited the Wall Street Journal editorial which draws attention to $83 billion for redistribution of wealth through tax refund checks to people who don't pay income taxes. And you thought it wasn't a vote buying bill?

Dick Morris describes the problem this way:

GOP, Push Free Enterprise
TownHall.com
by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
January 28, 2009

...In the name of economic stimulus, it not only has every item any liberal ever asked of Santa Claus on Christmas eve, it also contains the seeds of a permanent shift toward a European-style socialist democracy. Its dramatic exemption of more than half of Americans from paying federal income taxes (it is now about one-third who don't pay them) and its generosity in awarding this voting majority a welfare check -- called a refundable tax credit -- moves the politics of taxation sharply to the left.

But worse still, a loophole in the current bill:

Hill Republican: Stimulus aids illegal immigrants
The Associated Press
January 29, 2009

WASHINGTON: A top Republican congressional aide says the $800 billion-plus economic stimulus measure could steer government checks to illegal immigrants.

Republican officials are concerned that the Democratic-written legislation makes people who came to the United States illegally eligible for tax credits of $500 per worker and $1,000 per couple.

A House-passed version of the bill and one making its way through the Senate both disqualify nonresident aliens from receiving the credits. But neither requires a worker to have a Social Security number to get the credits.

An economic aid measure enacted in February 2008 that sent rebates to most wage earners required that people have valid Social Security numbers in order to get checks.

With all the opportunities for corruption and waste in this bill, which is more than one third the amount we spent for the entire federal government in fiscal year 2008, no one should be surprised at this oversight. It's one of many that are only now coming to light as the bill heads to the Senate.

Senate Republicans will do their best to block Hogzilla, but they can't stop this trainwreck without a few defections from Democrats. We found 11 House Democrats with backbone. Are there at least one or two in the Senate?