Perhaps not yet, but it’s on life support.

“A fragile compromise that would legalize millions of unlawful immigrants risks coming unraveled after the Senate voted early Thursday to place a five-year limit on a program meant to provide U.S. employers with 200,000 temporary foreign workers annually.

The 49-48 vote came two weeks after the Senate, also by a one-vote margin, rejected the same amendment by Sen. Byron Dorgan. The North Dakota Democrat says immigrants take many jobs Americans could fill.

The reversal dismayed backers of the immigration bill, which is supported by President Bush but loathed by many conservatives. Business interests and their congressional allies were already angry that the temporary worker program had been cut in half from its original 400,000-person-a-year target.
A five-year sunset, they said, could knock the legs from the precarious bipartisan coalition aligned with the White House. The Dorgan amendment “is a tremendous problem, but it’s correctable,” said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. The coalition will try as early as Thursday to persuade at least one senator to help reverse the outcome yet again, he said.”

“Dismayed by backers and loathed by conservatives”. That is perhaps the first clarity I’ve seen in the debate that actually decribes the two philosophies at issue. One of the reasons I have turned against this bill - aside from the fact that border security is an after thought, is that as I have read it, I can’t help seeing the decidedly liberal underpinnings of it’s core.

There’s more pork in this bill than in Rosie O’Donnell’s rear end. It gets down to just what we believe the Government’s ultimate responsibility to people is.

Don Surber:

“The first job of the government is not to give me food stamps; the first job of the government is not to give me Social Security; the first job of the government is not to give me a college loan; the first job of the government is not to give me free medical care if I am poor or old; the first job of the government is not to give me a guaranteed mortgage; the first job of the government is not to give me a check if I am unemployed; the first job of the government is not to give me one damned thing: The first job of the government is to protect the borders.”

This should give all conservatives who are supporting the bill a moment to reflect. What kind of welfare state will this actually create, and who will ulimtately bear the cost.

It’s because of this that I now am officially against THIS bill, not against fixing the immigration problem, but against what Kennedy (liberal) and McCain (RINO) have developed.

It’s time to stick a fork in it - now.

UPDATE I: More signs this thing is dead. Trent Lott is having Lindsey Graham attacks:

“Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he has told the most virulent Republican opponents that he will not tolerate a raft of amendment votes designed simply to filibuster the measure, and he castigated his own party’s senators for their vote switches.

“We’re going to do this damned thing, and if we don’t, I think we should dissolve the Congress and just go home,” Lott fumed.

Reid said he tried to wake Bolten up in Europe last night, where Bush is attending the G-8 summit of the seven largest Western economic powers and Russia, but he failed. Instead, Reid appealed to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to bring the president’s party around.”

Heh……

Yeah, it’s dead.