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It wasnt part of the jobs message he planned to pitch, but Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that immigration reform would help boost the economy.

Immigration reform will help our economy, but youve got to secure the border first, the Ohio Republican said after a speech at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute. Weve got a mess and everyone knows weve got a mess.

His immigration comments, in response to an audience question, werent part of his prepared remarks. They followed a 20-minute-speech in which Boehner laid out his five-point plan to jump-start Americas economy.

The AEI address served as the GOPs closing argument before the November midterm elections and came just as the House was wrapping up its final day of votes before sprinting to the campaign trail.

Boehner didnt offer many surprises in his speech: He called for fixing the U.S. tax code, cutting spending, reforming the legal system, reining in federal regulations and boosting education.

And the Speaker said opening up more areas for oil exploration and building the Keystone XL pipeline would really get our economy humming.

We do these five things in a meaningful way, along with the coming energy boom, we can reset the foundation of our economy for the next two or three generations and beyond, Boehner said.

Boehner argued that GOPs first priority should be tax reform. He said all the focus on so-called corporate inversions where U.S. corporations buy foreign companies and move their headquarters abroad to avoid taxes was short-sighted.

Inversions are really just visible symptoms of a much deeper problem: our tax code is terrible. No one understands it, certainly not the IRS, Boehner said. So all this talk about inversions is just making the problem smaller.

Its fussing over a divot when the road is loaded with potholes.

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Boehner: Immigration reform will help economy