Bush is hoping he can twist enough arms to win a procedural vote for reconsideration. He needs 60 votes, and there are dueling assessments between supporters and opponents as to whether or not he’ll get them. Only 45 Senators voted his way two weeks ago, seven of them Republicans.
Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has made no secret of his opposition to the bill, and for once I find myself concurring with him — although not for the same reasons. I have concerns about a guest worker program that sounds a lot like indentured servitude; Jeff seems more worried about the “Brown menace” that Pat Buchanan flogs on MSNBC on a daily basis.
Them indentured servants ain’t gonna just be picking fruit and changing diapers for the elderly, either. The plan is to bring in temporary workers all the way up the food chain.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/25/73229/6647
I wish I knew more about economics. It seems to me that if wages for middle-class jobs drop dramatically, because they’re all being done by foreign “guests” at half the going rate or less, it would have a pretty shattering effect on the whole economy, one so shattering that even the fat cats at the top would feel it. Somebody’s got to buy the sh*t at Target.
Looks like you know plenty, Del. I think some folks need to read the history of the early 20th century to remind themselves what happened the last time we had tremendous disparity between rich and poor with no middle class.
I’m listening to some guy on MSNBC right now saying companies here can’t find the high-tech employees they need and implying that they’ll just outsource more jobs if they can’t get those permanent guest workers.
[...] Yes!!! If you didn’t get to see it this Sunday, Pat Buchanan rescued all of our precious (WHITE) middle class American homes on Meet The Press in a hot debate versus Luis “Illegal” Gutierrez. Thank god for Pat Buchanan! Otherwise I’d be smothered in those disgusting immigantz and the brown MENACE! [...]
I really wish people would stop painting this whole thing as white vs. brown. On both sides of the aisle.
High tech jobs are already moving offshore. Boeing has had a design center in Moscow for several years (lots of engineers there willing to work for cheap) and there was a rumor of setting up something similar for aircraft engineering in Bangalore. Those are seriously good jobs that are leaving this country.
As to the economics — I skipped economics every chance I got — but this is how I see it. The US has a huge trade deficit because we import all that s**t they sell at Wal-Mart and Target. We buy it because we have too much spare cash. In other words, us regular folks are causing a trade problem because we are too well off. How to fix that? Let those good jobs go somewhere else. Granted, there still won’t be anything made in America for us to buy, but we won’t be able to afford nearly as much made in China s**t.
So then, the plan is to cripple China by making Americans poorer? It’s hard to believe anyone could cold-bloodedly formulate such a plan. Or is it.
Not cripple China, but fix the U.S. trade deficit. Big business will be moving to China because their economy is booming and pretty soon they’ll be able to start loading up on consumer goods the way Americans have in the last 50 years.
It isn’t hard for me to believe. Maybe I should be worried about that.
Look back on what human beings have done to each other throughout the ages. Slavery in this country isn’t even the worst excess done in the name of profit. Those who want money and power really don’t care if some poor people (and if you aren’t worth at least a million today, you are poor to the power players) get hurt along the way. That’s business. It’s a legitimate function of government to regulate the human impulse toward accumulating power and money at someone else’s expense. That way everyone gets to share in the fruits of their labor, not just the guys at the very top.
I also think big business would much rather not provide health care to workers, because for a lot of jobs it’s cheaper just to hire someone else than to get medical care for an employee who is sick or injured. Short term, bottom line is it doesn’t make sense for them financially. And folks who think like that are certain Social Security is evil because it doesn’t make economic sense to keep those old people around if they aren’t going to be working.