Bill Gates, Sheldon Adelson and Warren Buffet are worth a collective $184.3bn and when they speak out on pressing political and social issues such as immigration reform, people tend to listen. Whether Congress is listening is another matter; however, the three billionaires have been urging reform even as lawmakers continue to squabble over what to do about the thousands of immigrant minors still streaming into the United States.
Writing in the New York Times, the three men have this week used themselves as examples of the sort of bipartisan compromise that is going to be required in order to address immigration. “The three of us vary in our politics and would differ also in our preferences about the details of an immigration reform bill,” they wrote, adding: “But we could without a doubt come together to draft a bill acceptable to each of us.”
With a clear eye on Congress, the three billionaires note that everybody does not have to agree on every single detail in order to cooperate on issues on which they are mostly in agreement, and point out that in their opinion it is time that Washington started to adopt this mode of thinking.
“It’s time for the House to draft and pass a bill that reflects both our country’s humanity and its self-interest,” the article in the New York Times insists. “Differences with the Senate should be hammered out by members of a conference committee committed to a deal.”