With legislation pending both in the U.S. Congress and the Michigan House of Representatives to require employers to use a new federal immigration database, even conservative and Tea Party groups are speaking out against the idea. An open letter from leaders of the groups Take Back Washington, Tea Party Nation, Downsize DC, GOProud, the D.C. Tea Party and other conservative groups calls on members of Congress to reject the Legal Workforce Act, a bill sponsored by U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) that would mandate the use of the electronic identification system E-Verify by all businesses nationwide.

Laws requiring E-Verify have passed in multiple states and were found to be constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, as was penalizing employers that knowingly hired undocumented workers by revoking their business licenses. Already there have been multiple reports of immigrant workers fleeing states which have recently enacted similar enforcement laws, leading to labor shortages that confirm Lungren’s fears.

The Center for American Progress estimates in a recent report (PDF) that setting up E-Verify could cost small businesses anywhere from $1,254 to $24,422. The report also predicts that 0.5 percent of legal American workers will be mistakenly identified as undocumented workers and fired if E-Verify is implemented nationwide, a proportion that may seem relatively small but would amount to 770,000 people unjustly losing their job. Read more at michiganmessenger.com

Contrary to what you and others in the liberal news media portray, we commoners know that this debt crisis and credit downgrade was not created by anything tea party members in Congress did. The simple truth is years of previous deficit spending coupled with recent huge increases of additional deficit spending have created this problem. And we, as well as Standard & Poor’s, know that more government spending being espoused by liberal politicians in order to solve this “crisis” is insane. That’s exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. Common sense — apparently a rare commodity in Washington and by some who write newspaper opinion articles — dictates reduced government spending in order for the United to avoid certain financial collapse.

Tea party members and other fiscal conservatives in Congress have offered rational solutions to our nation’s debt problems. That’s why they were sent to Washington: to propose and attempt to pass legislation that will reduce government spending and invigorate the private sector economy — when the private sector increases so do government revenues, as history clearly demonstrates — so why fault the tea party for attempting to rein in out-of-control government spending which has put our country on a disastrous course that could quite possibly collapse the global economy? And why do you give those politicians who put us on this course and refuse to address the problem a free pass?

You also blame the tea party for Congress’ low public approval ratings. Really?! I would argue that those in Congress before tea party members were elected — the majority of whom are still in office today — are to blame. They are the ones who spent us 13 trillion dollars into debt and have offered no sound solutions to long-term solvency. FYI: The recent debt ceiling agreement does not actually reduce current government spending, it only reduces the rate of growth in future government spending. So instead of ridiculing the tea party — and all of us Americans who have common sense — please tell us how the U.S. government can spend its way out of debt? Read more at www.dailyworld.com

A powerful coalition that includes Tea Party members of Congress rejected a debt ceiling offer from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Monday, calling a proposed bipartisan, bicameral committee that would draft deficit-reduction legislation “troubling” — not because it would afford too much power to too few people, but because they said it could lead to tax increases.

Nevertheless, separate proposals put forward by Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday each included versions of a Super Congress — referred to on the Hill as a Super Committee — that would write laws that could not be amended by the regular Congress, only voted up or down. In Boehner’s version, the debt ceiling would be raised a second time if Congress approved the cuts decided on by the Super Congress.

“Perhaps most troubling is the proposed Congressional Commission. History has shown that such commissions, while well-intentioned, make it easier to raise taxes than to institute enduring budget reforms,” reads a statement put out by the Cut, Cap and Balance Coalition, which is made up of a number of Tea Party groups. Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

The next step in the weeks-long saga over how to increase the government’s borrowing cap is to let House tea party forces try it their way.

A Republican “cut, cap and balance” plan set for a House vote Tuesday would condition a $2.4 trillion increase in the so-called debt limit on an immediate $100 billion-plus cut from next year’s budget and adoption by Congress of a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget. “Let’s let the American people decide,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on “Fox News Sunday.” “Do they want something common sense as cutting spending, capping the growth in government and requiring a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution?” (Can Boehner and Obama convince their colleagues to compromise?)

The idea appears to be to allow tea party-backed GOP lawmakers to have the run of Congress this week in hopes that they’ll ultimately be able to stomach a plan emerging in the Senate to give President Barack Obama sweeping power to order a $2.5 trillion increase in the debt limit without approval by Congress. Read more at www.time.com

Congressional leaders are giving tea party-backed Republican freshmen the run of the House this week with a plan to let the government borrow another $2.4 trillion — but only after big and immediate spending cuts and adoption by Congress of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget.

This “cut, cap and balance” plan is set to pass the House on Tuesday but is sure to stall in the Senate, where majority Democrats say it would lead to decimating budget cuts and make it harder to pass tax increases on the wealthy. And even if the scheme could pass, there’s no way Congress will adopt a balanced budget amendment, which requires a two-thirds vote in both House and Senate.

But tea party lawmakers are insisting on the effort to try to put their stamp on the debate over the so-called debt limit, and GOP leaders — lacking other ideas that might win a majority in the Republican dominated House — were quick to give their OK at a spirited closed-door meeting on Friday. Read more at www.google.com

For Tea Party activists, the day that members of Congress cast their votes on raising the nation’s debt ceiling will be a moment of truth, the point at which they find out who is with them and who is against them.

“We’re going to see if people really stay true to their principles,” says Mark Meckler, the cofounder of the Tea Party Patriots, one of the most influential of the organizations in the country. “Those who don’t will pay the price.”

With an Aug. 2 deadline for a possible default looming, Meckler’s group has insisted that members of Congress block any increase to the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

But a coalition of 130 other Tea Party groups, along with conservative powerhouses like FreedomWorks, the Christian Coalition, and the Club for Growth, are pushing a less restrictive, never-say-never approach for Republicans on the debt-ceiling debate. Read more at powerwall.msnbc.msn.com

Most Americans agree and believe the debt limit should not be raised. Recent polls indicate 69 percent of registered voters are opposed to raising the debt ceiling.

A C-Span video by Tea Party activists said they would be holding members of Congress to account for their vote on raising the debt limit. William Temple, chairman of The Tea Party Founding Fathers, said, “Washington is piling 40 cents per dollar of federal spending, $4 billion per day, on to the national debt and our children’s backs, yet these wimpy House R.I.N.O.’s refuse to hide President Obama’s Mastercard!” Read more at www.greeleygazette.com

And where were the Tea Partyers? Dub them the “dogs that did not bark.” For two years, they have complained about elites making decisions that adversely impact ordinary Americans with less access and influence. They loved to denounce Congress, Wall Street, and Obamacare. Fearful of their wrath, Congress, for the first time in memory, debated over what to cut rather than add to the federal budget. [Check out a roundup of political cartoons on the federal budget and deficit.]

If there ever was a plan launched by an unaccountable elite (this time based in foreign capitals as well as in Washington), the run-up to the “no-fly zone” over Libya was it. The Tea Partyers cheered when the House voted to do away with federal funding for Planned Parenthood ($330 million), National Public Radio ($422 million), and the U.S. Institute of Peace ($56 million). But, in five days over Libya, the U.S. lost $31 million when its F-15E fighter plane crashed, and more than $250 million in fired cruise missiles, with more spending on the way. And they say not a word. [Read: Military Involvement In Libya Costs Taxpayers Millions.] Read more at www.usnews.com