What We Believe, Part 6: Immigration
In Part 6 of What We Believe, Bill Whittle looks at the distinction between legal and Illegal immigration.
Bill Whittle writes the popular blog Eject! Eject! Eject!
Take a moment and check out all Bill Whittle’s you tube page here
Originally published October 20, 2011 @ American Thinker
President Obama is in deep trouble, his approval numbers are at an all time low and his far left base is protesting in the street. More importantly, the President’s latest jobs bill (Stimulus II) is so unpopular that his own party exercised the “nuclear option” in the Senate to prevent any of its members from voting on it. The American people don’t want to throw good money after bad and Congressmen that value their jobs know it.
The President’s reaction to the sound rejection of his failed policies by the American people is to try and divide and conquer. By pitting different parts of the electorate against the each other the President hopes to curry favor with enough of the factions to win re-election. Obama is willing to spend a lots of Federal dollars to woo interest groups. Even in the face of record deficits, the President and his supporters still wants the Federal Government to spend money it doesn’t have on a strategy that’s doesn’t create jobs or help the economy. The hope is that some of those borrowed dollars will be remembered in November 2012.
The divide and conquer strategy is also being used legislatively. During President Obama’s latest tax payer funded campaign tour, the President attacked Republicans and vowed to send the rejected Stimulus II back to Congress piecemeal. The idea of breaking the bill apart has been floating around in the leftist blogsphere for a while and liberal commentators have advocated this approach as a way to blunt the criticisms regarding the bill’s cost. By dividing the bill up, the President hopes to conqueror Congress.
Yesterday the President and Vice President pulled out all of the stops to try and drum up support for pieces of the jobs bill that are designed to help Obama’s public union base and bailout friendly democratic strong holds. The rhetoric paints a picture of saving the jobs of teachers, policemen, firemen and preventing crime. The truth is that the programs just feed federal money back to the heavily unionized democratic states and cities that are in financial trouble. Considering the anger over the trillions of dollars in debt and the wall street bailout, there should be anger over this latest attempt to bailout some states and cities. Like Stimulus I, Stimulus II can be thought of as a thinly disguised bribe to traditional democratic benefactors.
The Democratically controlled Senate hasn’t passed a budget in nearly 2 years and the President’s policies are driving the Federal government to the verge of a Greek style insolvency. To reverse the trend voters need to be extremely vigilant and vocal about opposing the coming piecemeal bits of legislation that attempt to push through Stimulus II one piece at a time. Policies that poll well are likely to be offered up as individual bills, like Federal job training programs which are a proven waste of tax payer money. Less popular policies, like loans to green energy companies, will be rolled into bills that headline “payroll tax breaks” or “preserving police jobs” in an attempt to slide them through Congress. If the American taxpayers aren’t careful they will be on the hook for another 500,000,000,000 dollars and have nothing to show for it.
This Halloween the total US debt will pass the country’s GDP, a startling and ominous fact. President Obama is oblivious and pushes for more appropriation bills to “spread the wealth around“. When the government runs out of money and lenders, the only thing they have left to appropriate is everything you produce and everything you own. Sadly even that may not be enough to pay off our collective debt.
Originally published May 6, 2011 @ American Thinker
On yesterday’s Marketplace (5/5/2011), a daily public radio program, there was a piece titled “Welcoming more immigrants could help boost the U.S. economy“. The piece starts with this opening;
“President Obama says he is planning another push for immigration reform in the coming weeks and months. He met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus about the issue earlier this week. The President wants to provide a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who are already here illegally.” |
The introduction makes it clear that the President is discussing changing US policy toward illegal immigrants. The Marketplace host asks if immigration policy is a place to look for economic growth. The answer is a bit too clever.
“Look, Jeremy, I know it’s controversial, but there’s just a large body of economic research that says immigration, immigrants — it’s the steroids of economic growth. So if you think of companies like Intel or Google, a lot of their employees — they’re immigrants.” |
Intel, Google, and lots of startups don’t use illegal immigrants. Those companies utilize legal immigrants, foreign workers here on h1b visas, or other work permits. There is a huge difference between a PHD graduate from India that is here legally and a day laborer from Guatemala that paid a coyote to get across the Rio Grande. Marketplace’s transparent attempt to conflate the two borders on sophomoric.
There is a large body of evidence that illegal immigration has a massive cost associated with it. FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) presents a study that show that the costs of illegal immigrants far outweigh the benefits. The Perryman report from 2008 claims the opposite. Regardless of how you personally feel on the subject, no one is arguing that illegal immigrants are the same as legal workers in the US.
If Obama wanted to talk about the immigrants that Intel and Google employ, he should have been talking to Bobby Jindal or Nikki Haley, not the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. If Marketplace wanted to talk about illegal immigration they shouldn’t try to lump in the legal workers who have followed the letter of the law and worked very hard for the right to work in this country. Immigration policy, foreign work visa programs, and illegal immigration are all hot button issues, especially in a economy with nearly 20% underemployment. Solutions will require honest and adult conversation, 2 things lacking in yesterday’s Marketplace report.
Originally published September 7, 2011 @ American Thinker
The liberal story line is that the recent recession and anemic recovery is different from previous economic downturns. It is claimed that a “different type” of recession drives a slow and weak recovery, just like the great depression. The liberal soothsayers claim that this type of economic downturn requires the government to keep spending or we’re all doomed. The liberal narrative fits quite nicely into the leftist political view of the world, more government, more government spending, and more government control. The problem with the narrative is that it ignores the facts. Massive government spending hasn’t helped us now and massive government spending did not get us out of the great depression. In fact, government interference in the marketplace and New Deal policies extended the depression by seven years and hurt millions.
Our current administration’s response to economic events of today is very much the same as the FDR’s New Deal was 76 years ago and we should not expect different results. FDR heavily favored unions and ignored years of constitutional law when pushing through the National Recovery Act (NRA), a corner stone of New Deal policies. The National Recovery Act actually threw out decades of anti-trust law and allowed heavily unionized industries to collude to keep prices high and unionized labor paid well (and many unemployed). While the NRA was found unconstitutional in 1935, unions were still provided increased protection and power through the National Labor Relations Act, passed the same year. The granting of unprecedented power to unions and the strikes that ensured led directly to the 1937 economic downturn.
One of the first acts of the Obama administration was a government sponsored re-organization of two of the big three automakers. During the “bailout” the Obama administration ignored the rule of law, denying secured-bond holders their property rights, while providing political allies in the UAW an unprecedented windfall. When some of those bond holders cried foul the President publicly castigated them and portrayed them as anti-american villains. Untold billions of capital were sidelined by this one action alone. What sane person would invest when the rules of that investment could be rewritten for political expediency?
Both FDR and Obama increased the tax and regulatory burden of doing business. FDR referred to the “excessive profit” that companies earned and instituted tax policies that were confiscatory. FDR’s policies favored the large well established companies and helped to keep competition to a bare minimum. In practice these policies destroyed any incentive people had to get into business, or to expand their businesses. Today Obama mimics these same policies and attitudes from his “you’ve made enough money” speech to the EPA imposition of regulations that will shutdown nearly 10 percent of our current power production in the US. From healthcare to the EPA the Obama administration equals FDR for job killing regulation.
Nefarious creations dreamed up during FDR’s time in office are still haunting and hurting our economy today. For example, Fannie Mae the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) at the epicenter of the housing meltdown was created as part of the New Deal in 1938. The National Labor Relations Act signed by FDR in 1935 is the reason we have the National Labor Relations Board. The National Labor Relations Board recently filed a complaint against Boeing for daring to build a plant in a right to work state. Like FDR before him, Obama’s use of regulators and regulation is sidelining capital and preventing companies from being competitive. The result of an environment where companies aren’t permitted to be competitive is stagnation and job loss.
We aren’t witnessing a different type of recession, we’re witnessing the same type of government action that leads to frozen capital and economic stagnation. We are witnessing a repeat of government hubris and failure. When anyone insists that the economy needs more government spending, remind them how it worked out last time – 7 extra years of suffering.
Originally published June 7, 2011 @ American Thinker.
While coming home I often listen to our local NPR station. This afternoons “All Things Considered” asked the question “How Accurate Were Palin’s Paul Revere Comments?” The story started out with;
“Sarah Palin is defending her knowledge of American history.”
Here we go again, I was prepared for the usual “Palin is a moron” storyline. Surprisingly that didn’t happen. What I got was Robert Allison, a professor and historian at Suffolk University, telling the NPR host that Palin basically got it right. The interviewer, Melissa Block, tries to cajole a different narrative out of the professor and historian, throwing out the question “Are there other historians professor, whom you’ve talked with that say you’re being entirely too charitable toward Sarah Palin here?” Ms. Block starts to chuckle toward the end of the question. The professor doesn’t let her finish the before responding.
The result is a classic public radio moment wherein the good professor gets to the heart of the matter; Sarah Palin is a lightning rod for the media, and NPR wouldn’t have been talking to him about Paul Revere or the American Revolution if it hadn’t been for an off the cuff remark from an Alaskan politician.
Take a moment and listen to the short piece yourself. I don’t think it quite turned out the way the producers had imagined.
Originally published April 26, 2011 @ American Thinker.
The President has a great deal of faith in committees, except when he doesn’t. For example, last year he created, by executive order, the debt commission – a committee designed to provide recommendations on how the country can balance its books. The commission’s report came out in December of 2010, and was promptly ignored by the White House. Instead the Obama administration offered a budget that still spent more than a trillion dollars of deficit spending. The rhetoric was that Obama was cutting a trillion over 10 years. The debt commission was all but forgotten.
The Obama budget was dead on arrival with the house and the American people. In the interim Paul Ryan outlined a budget counter proposal that trimmed between 4 and 6 trillion dollars in 10 years. Obama had played political chicken with the Republicans, daring them to go after the sacred cows of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Ryan took the challenge, and his real plan for real fiscal reform struck a chord with voters, and changed the conversation in Washington.
President Obama got fiscal responsibility religion, apparently scared about chickens coming home to roost in 2012 and offered a counter proposal in a recent speech. Besides berating Ryan, we were treated to a lot of the same campaign rhetoric we heard in 2008. From imagery of Republicans taking care away from Autistic children and poor children, to the old stand by of “tax cuts for the rich”. He also mentioned that deficits were bad and that we had to live within our means.
After listening to Obama’s speech and then looking at the budget offered just 2 months earlier, the only thing that is clear is that President Obama is the President that was for deficits, before he was against them.
During the speech, President Obama offerer another committee to come to the rescue.
“And we will slow the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need.” |
Considering what he did with the recommendations from the debt commission, one has to wonder just what recommendations the President would listen to if such a commission was created. More troubling, hasn’t history shown that command and control style economics don’t work? The history of communist China, Cuba, and the USSR are riddled with 5 year plans that didn’t produce and commissions and committees that didn’t work or were simply ignored.
Some may find that comparison harsh, but I point you to the latest news from the Presidents core constituency, big labor. The unions representing Boeing workers are claiming that Boeing’s decision to build planes in a right to work state, is “discouraging membership in a labor organization” and thus violates federal law. Translation; those big burly Union members got their feelings hurt and now big labor is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to deny Boeing the right to build planes in the state of their choosing. If the NLRB (another committee) sides with the unions, you will have the equivalent of the government dictating to a private company what means of production will be allowed for the largest manufacturer of commercial jetliners in the US.
From commissions to committees President Obama’s teams have failed on several fronts. From the economy to a coherent foreign policy the only thing the President has successfully accomplished is passing a massively unpopular health care bill that will cost trillions. If the President wants to shake off the moniker of socialist, he might want to try suggesting some capitalistic solutions for a change. After all capitalism has created the wealthiest, most generous, and richest country the world has ever seen.
Update: Minor grammar correction
Listening to Obama’s budget speech was like an exercise in avoiding Jedi Mind tricks or Orwellian double speak. If you were confused, let me help you out.
Ironically a little more than a month ago deficits weren’t such a big deal, and government spending was what was going to save the economy. In fact it was such a non issue that President Obama submitted a budget that cut nearly nothing and spent trillions we didn’t have. What’s changed in a month? A real plan for change was introduced by representative Paul Ryan that cut trillions and the Obama team is scrambling.
President Obama is now the candidate that was for the deficit before he was against it.
Sometimes you hear an argument so illogical it just leaves you slack jawed in amazement. About 2 weeks ago I had that experience during a discussion on an internet radio show when a couple of very earnest listeners tried to convince me that Islam isn’t a religion and Muslims were not protected by the first amendment. Usually such profound failures in logic are found among the über leftist/anti-war crowd, on this day it was from 2 people that professed to believe in the constitution exhorting me to study our founding fathers. Ironic to say the least.
The arguments offered to support the view that Islam is not a religion centered around two concepts. The first was that ideals or practices by Muslims were not religious, and therefore Islam was not a religion. The second argument was that Islam was a cult, and therefore not a religion. If the arguers were honest they could have condensed their arguments into one concise point – these people didn’t like Islam, and therefore it wasn’t a religion in their eyes.
My counter points revolved around a few simple ideas. The first was that it didn’t matter what ideals or traditions you like or dislike about a religion, it didn’t change the fact that Islam is a religion by both legal and common definition. That argument was unpersuasive. I pointed out most of the objectionable behavior they described was illegal and religion didn’t protect one from criminal prosecution (ie beating your wife is still a crime and didn’t make you Muslim). I did not change a single mind. Even when I demonstrated that the ideals that they found objectionable weren’t practiced by all Muslims, the arguers wouldn’t even conceded the possibility that a good Muslim could exist. I provided links to Muslim scholars that argued that a religious caliphate was wrong, and that misogynistic treatment of women was a crime. The response was that anyone claiming to be Muslims but held any view counter to their stereotype wasn’t a Muslim, but rather a “cafeteria Muslim” and didn’t count.
I was stunned. For the “Islam is not a religion” crowd, it didn’t matter if you were moderate, or believed in a secular culture, or were against jihad. For them, if you called yourself a Muslim, they felt you didn’t deserve first amendment protections.
Freedom of both speech and religion is a cornerstone of our society, and I’m floored by how quickly some will discard it. Thomas Jefferson wrote “no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.” Jefferson and Madison were strong advocates for religious freedoms. How could an advocate for “founding ideals” not believe in religious freedom?
Then it hit me, I was arguing with the same mindset I ran into in San Francisco in 2007 when I got to “meet” some anti-war protesters. Everyone of these people suffered “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” Logic, reason, even human empathy didn’t exist, for this anti-war crew. The rules were for other people, they felt they were right, and that was the end of the argument. The folks arguing that Islam is not a religion had more in common with the anti-war/code pink crowd than I could have ever imagined. Both groups are cafeteria constitutionalists, choosing when and where the constitution applies, according to their whims.
President Washington sent the following instructions to his agent for hiring workers to build Mount Vernon “If they be good workmen, they may be from Asia, Africa, or Europe; they may be Mohammedan, Jews, or Christians of any sect, or they may be Atheists.” As a military man Washington understood to his very core that it was the content of character and not religion, or country of origin that defined a man. Surprisingly more than 200 years later some Americans still don’t understand this universal truth.
Originally published March 22, 2011 @ American Thinker.
President Obama has stressed that a college education is critical to the future of America and our ability to compete in the world marketplace. To achieve that aim, our government is spending 60% more in 2011 than 2008 and providing 123% more in tax breaks for post secondary education (i.e., college). The Government has taken over all federally backed student loans, pushing almost all private lenders out of the 100 billion a year market.
But are we getting our money’s worth?
One of the hallmarks of bad government is spending that is out of proportion to what is actually bought. Think 500 dollar hammers and 1200 dollar toilets seats. Ensuring that taxpayers get what they pay for at a fair price is doubly important in this age of a 14 trillion dollar national debt. When the conversation turns to such ephemeral ideas as a good education, measuring value for money is rarely talked about. Perhaps we had better start considering some of the salient statistics;
These statistics underscore the unintended consequences of blindly funneling monies into the US college education marketplace. Much like the community re-investment act coupled with loose monetary policy fed the housing bubble, government monies are feeding the forces driving higher education cost up. This produces a vicious cycle where government drives costs up requiring more taxpayer money to help get students through school. Currently dividing the amount of aid available by the estimated total student enrollment results in more than nine thousand dollars of aid per student for 2010!
The increasing cost isn’t just too many dollars chasing a product. According to the New York Times, part of the increase in tuition costs can be traced to the increase in back office personnel required to comply with the regulations and reporting requirements colleges. Government has several strings attached for all of the money it lends out, and those strings aren’t cheap.
Stephen J. Dubner of Freakonomics fame makes an interesting observation;
|
When I visited my undergrad alma mater a few years ago, the chancellor pointed out that three buildings had gone up in the past decade or so that were each larger than any existing building on campus. There was a library, a convocation center (a multipurpose arena), and a huge student gym. The gym, he said, was a top priority because parents and prospective students increasingly think of themselves as customers, shopping for the most amenities for the best price, and the colleges that didn’t come to grips with this would soon see their customers going elsewhere. |
Instead of looking at schools as places of learning, students and parents are looking at schools for their amenities. Some students are just looking for a good place to party. The existence of lists like the “Top ten party schools in the US” takes on a new meaning for taxpayers who are helping foot more and more of the bill. These changes in attitudes toward college may help explain some of the seedier statistics about college life in the US, from binge drinking to sexually transmitted disease infection rates. The changes in attitude among today’s enrollees is a marked departure from the GI Bill students with whom they are compared when we talk about government funding secondary education.
As noted above, schools are adapting to keep up with these changing attitudes and this includes their teachers. In one recent example students were treated to a live sex show, an incident NRO described as “The $50,000 Orgasm“. This may help explain why such a large portion of graduates show no improvement in critical thinking. The teacher responsible for the live sex show actually said “My decision to say ‘yes’ reflected my inability to come up with a legitimate reason why students should not be able to watch such a demonstration.” Apparently being a “cool” teacher is more important than being an effective educator among a certain subset of college academics, and critical thinking is certainly not involved.
In the eyes of people like President Obama, America has failed college students. The failure isn’t because people are graduating with large amounts of debt, or even graduating without being able to think critically. The failure is that enough people aren’t going to college in the first place. The immediate reaction to the bad news among the statist crowd is more money, and more regulation. This will just exacerbate the problem. Governments often interfere in markets and then complain when that interference doesn’t produce the desired results (For Example: FDR’s policies prolonged the Great Depression by seven years).
The solution isn’t more money, or more regulation. Indeed, we’ve already seen the Department of Education engage in unethical behavior while writing new regulations in an attempt to stop private for profit education from competing with traditional educational outlets. It is not the government’s job to pick winners or losers in the educational marketplace.
If we want a first rate educational system that works in the US, then the federal government’s interference in the college education marketplace needs to end. Allow schools to compete with each other and for student’s money and attendance. Give tax breaks to businesses that provide college tuition assistance or loans. Let banks, businesses, colleges, and private charities be the source of student aid. These entities have a vested interest in the outcome of each student, the quality of instruction, and in controlling the cost of the education received.
A market based solution won’t be popular among the entitlement crowd, but it will make for a more efficient and effective education system. Shifting the source of student aide will also produce a more serious college student. If the taxpayer funded ride to a top ten party school stops, more college bound students will have to select a school based on more than just the amenities (Welcome students to your first lesson in critical thinking).
It’s great to see our that our congress is taking budget deficits seriously. Harry Reid is complains that the Republicans are “mean spirited”. Going on to say on the floor to say “The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival.” I’m glad Reid has his priorities straight, because cowboy poetry is important. My humble contribution to the art form is below.
The Senate bard Reid,
delivers an interesting screed.
It seems he’s dismayed, that his poets aren’t paid, by the taxpayers & others in need.
I wonder if I can apply for a NEA grant.
Comments Off