Rich Lowry and his buddy at the National Review, Bill Kristol were already pushing for Republicans to obstruct any immigration reform in a recent op-ed. Lowry upped the ante with a host of lies on this week's Meet the Press.
July 15, 2013

I have concerns about this immigration bill that made its way through the Senate for reasons that of course were not discussed by David Gregory or anyone on his show this Sunday, such as the militarization of our border and the money that's going to be wasted there. But if we're going to have an honest debate about what's in the bill, maybe the likes of the National Review's Rich Lowry is one of the last people we should be hearing from on the topic.

Lowry appeared on this Sunday's Meet the Press and as our friends over at Media Matters took note of, the portion of the panel discussion on immigration reform was packed with him lying about some of the costs of the bill that managed to make it through the Senate: National Review's Lowry Piles On The Immigration Lies On Meet The Press:

On July 8, Lowry co-wrote an editorial with Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol calling on congressional Republicans to "kill the bill." On Meet the Press on July 14, Lowry called for the passage of "incremental" immigration legislation in the House instead of comprehensive reform.

Lowry claimed that "we're still going to have, depending on your estimates, 6, 7, 8 million more illegal immigrants here in 10years."

In fact, the CBO forecasts that by 2023 there will be 8.1 million less undocumented immigrants in the country.

Later, Lowry said that "according to the CBO, unemployment will be higher" between 2014 and 2020 if the bill passes and that wages "will be lower."

But the CBO report notes that slight reductions in average wages "for the much of the next two decades" caused by the bill's passage would mostly be felt by "the additional people who would become residents under the legislation" who will "earn lower wages," and is not likely to impact current U.S. residents.

The report also notes that the bill would have "no effect on the unemployment rate after 2020."

Lowry also said "the CBO says there's no deficit reduction in the first 10 years," which directly contradicts the report's contents. The CBO explains that "the legislation would decrease federal budget deficits by $197 billion over the 2014-2023 period and by roughly $700 billion over the 2024-2033 period."

Conservative media figures have repeatedly distorted the data surrounding immigration reform, while also demanding that Republican elected officials refuse to pass the pending legislation.

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