George Bush was STRONGLY against border security before he miraculously came out for it in his nationally televised address tonight.David Sirota details a brief history of the Republican government's failure to secure the borders; specifically, a long list of Bush actions that derailed Democratic efforts to fund border security.
I think this quote from a 2005 San Francisco Chronicle sums up the Bush record nicely. Here they report on how Mr. Bush slashed 9,790 border security agents from the 2006 budget. Goodbye 10,000. Hello 210.
"The law signed by President Bush less than two months ago to add thousands of border patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border has crashed into the reality of Bush's austere federal budget proposal, officials said Tuesday. Officially approved by Bush on Dec. 17 after extensive bickering in Congress, the National Intelligence Reform Act included the requirement to add 10,000 border patrol agents in the five years beginning with 2006. Roughly 80 percent of the agents were to patrol the southern U.S. border from Texas to California, along which thousands of people cross into the United States illegally every year. But Bush's proposed 2006 budget, revealed Monday, funds only 210 new border agents."
Visit David Sirota's blog for more info on Bush's traditional Wide-Open border policy, including his threatened veto of an entire transportation bill, because it would have required inspections of Mexican trucks entering the US.
George Bush is fighting a desperate and unprincipled battle to gain any support he can find, while his formerly supportive reactionary base abandons him to the dustbin of history.
Ignorance, hatred, and greed can only benefit a man for so long before he must reap the whirlwind.
[UPDATE: Jeffrey Feldman goes to the heart of the matter, live-blogging Bush's speech. The failed frames Bush uses are 1. Training, which focuses public attention on some promise of future reward, e.g. training the Iraqi military, and 2. Technology, a tamper-proof id card system, Utopia by any other name. The Democrats rebut with Management, which highlights the fact that Bush has no plan and has exercised no leadership, and Service, which decries Bush's misuse of the National Guard. While Jeffrey Feldman gives Dick Durbin props for his MORAL ACCOUNTING Frame "'work hard and play by the rules...deserve a fair process to become citizens.", he ultimately comes away disappointed with both Democrats and with the failed President:
I would have liked the Democrats to really state what this issue was about: American industry and corporations that violate labor practices and standards by abusing immigrant workers--and in the course of doing that, creating a flow of labor into this country which can only be stopped by confronting the source of that draw: employers.
However, I'm pretty sure that Bush's Transportation Veto was over excessive funding. I was involved (slightly) and that's what we were dealing with.
These Visas never even make the major press.
Then, the other side of this argument is that Mexico and nations S. of the border are pushing their people to the US instead of providing them jobs and economic opportunity in their home countries. And never mentioned is how NAFTA and CAFTA-DR is a huge part of that.
And nowhere is anyone coming down on employers, which they could do immediately because the laws are already on the books.
What a mess, I shake my head and fear once again the only ones who will benefit from this raging controversy are multinational corporations and business lobbying for cheap labor.
Protectionism in China guts American manufacturing because our manufacturers have to pay for health insurance (more costly for auto makers than steel). Meanwhile, the true cost of our "free" trade agreements with Mexico and Central America becomes clear as Global Corporatists gut the American middle class by creating micro-wage slavery as the new chief export of the US.
Sick and sad and seemingly irreversable because the forces of ignorance, greed, and hate have overwhelmed the discussion with beligerent nationalism and the delusion that you can somehow use a gate and bullets to stifle the American Dream.
yet, of course China is at slave wages and even with that their labor force is being undercut as multinational corporations seek even cheaper labor around the globe. Current target is Vietnam.
But, the China PNTR trade agreement is so biased against America and it's this huge myth that 1.3B Chinese will magically become this huge consumer market that multinational corporations can sell their products too...so they salivate at the mouth to get there...
but then they discovered that the US consumer market is still going strong so while they wait for this 1.3B mythical Chinese middle class, they discovered they could hunt the globe for cheap labor and still sell in the #1 consumer market, the U.S.A. Clearly this isn't sustainable but I believe the plan is to have another consumer market in place once the US is bleed dry (if they even thought it through that far and from the typical American business model and plan...I doubt it)..
so what has evolved is multinational corporations simply hunt the globe for slave labor pools as well as using trade agreements and their international status to manipulate domestic markets, gain access to domestic banking systems (Citibank is beyond belief on this one) and play nation-states against one another.
Few realize that in the WTO, GATS mode 4 are proposals and a huge push to categorize people as "services to be traded" so corporations can have even more control in terms of forcing the migration of entire groups of peoples to whether they feel they need that workforce.
Charming. But, what is going on in the US on immigration is a framing of the debate as "felonies" or "compassion" and on and on so the real issues and thus any real solutions proposed are ignored even though both the far right and the far left are both screaming to enforce labor laws and to punish severely employers (this is true, believe it or not).
He started with the farm workers union and moved up to career professionals.
The overall economists consensus is that increases in immigration do drive down wages all other elements static.
In the case of a shortage in a particular area one should see wages spike up to indicate a shortage.
This person definitely deserves my 2d troll rating, they also received my very 1st at the other story. Go over there and give them hell. BTW other "Shiller" apologists at least come right out and let it be known they are blindly for "The Shiller", but at least she does not try to insult our intelligence by arguing in favor of outsourcing It usually just degenerates into attacks on Jim and repetition of Shiller lies and half-truths. To her credit, that is better than this absurd crap.
Clearly, many American businesses will use lower wage replacements whenever possible — especially if it means violating largely unenforced laws with minimal penalties. They could easily conclude that this is a reasonable business risk given the indifference shown by immigration enforcement agencies. It's a low risk, low cost gamble with a far greater possibility for profit by using illegal aliens for labor arbitrage.
Of course, this hurts our communities by driving down wage scales and employment opportunities for American workers and places honest American business people who follow the rules and don’t hire illegal aliens at a competitive disadvantage. The presence of large numbers of underpaid low wage illegal aliens in our communities further compounds the burden on middle and working class Americans by placing additional stress on our social programs, public health system and educational system at a time when wages are stagnant and middle class jobs are disappearing.
The real winners in this present scenario are the business owners who use illegal aliens. Like the companies which outsource, they enjoy a competitive advantage over others by practicing labor arbitrage and reap a windfall of profits not broadly shared by middle and working class Americans. The presence of illegal aliens in our society are, in contrast, regressive — especially devastating to working class Americans attempting to climb the ladder into the middle class.