According to a study by Regional Economic Models, Inc., a set of reforms like that of the Senate Immigration Reform Bill that provides “a pathway to earned citizenship and expands a high-skilled and other temporary worker programs would together boost California’s economic output by $7.3 billion and create approximately 77,070 new jobs in 2014.”
“The study demonstrates that comprehensive immigration reform will create jobs, expand the economy, and strengthen the economic security of hardworking Americans,” said a release by Congressman John Garamendi who represents Davis and much of Yolo County in the House of Representatives.
“We are a nation of immigrants and a state of pioneers. As this study shows, comprehensive immigration reform will strengthen California’s economy, create jobs, and help establish needed normalcy for our vital agricultural sector,” said Congressman Garamendi. “When we come back from the August recess, I hope the leadership in the House is ready to let us vote on a bipartisan compromise similar to what passed the Senate.”
The study found that immigrants already make important contributions to California’s economy. For example, California’s labor force is 34.4% foreign-born. In 2009, immigrants accounted for 34% of total economic output in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Providing a pathway to earned citizenship and expanding high- and low-skilled visa programs will increase total personal income for California families by $29.1 billion in 2020, according to Regional Economic Models, an economic forecasting corporation.
The support for reform crosses political and ideological lines. For instance, Paul Wegner, the President of the California Farm Bureau, warned, “If House GOP members block comprehensive immigration reform it would be bad for California business, in part because the current immigration system does not provide enough work visas to meet California’s farm labor needs.”
Allan Zaremberg, President of the California Chamber of Commerce, added, “Comprehensive immigration reform…is probably more important to California’s economy than that of any other state. Technology, agriculture, and tourism, among others, must have comprehensive immigration reform to survive.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that, relative to current law projections, enacting the Senate immigration reform bill will increase national real GDP by 3.3 percent in 2023 and 5.4 percent in 2033 – increasing the size of the economy by roughly $700 billion in 2023 and $1.4 trillion in 2033 in today’s dollars.
The bipartisan Senate bill will increase the size of the labor force by 3.5 percent in 2023 and 5 percent in 2033, according to CBO, which will boost capital investment and lead to increased productivity and higher overall average wages.
According to CBO, the additional taxes paid by new and legalizing immigrants would much more than offset the estimated costs of the bill – in fact, enacting the bill would actually improve the federal budget outlook in both the short and long term. Additional immigration would help balance out an increase in retirees-per-worker, as the baby boomer generation retires, strengthening the Social Security program.
A report from the White House, released in July, found, “In recent years, the agriculture sector has seen strong growth, with farm income and agriculture exports both reaching historic highs. In 2013, net farm income is forecast to total $128.2 billion, which would be the highest level since 1973 after adjusting for inflation. Much of this growth is due to the demand for American agriculture exports: the value of agriculture exports has steadily risen in recent years and is projected to reach $135.8 billion in 2013, which would also establish a new record. But among all economic sectors, the U.S. agriculture sector is particularly reliant on foreign-born workers.”
The report continues, “The agriculture industry is hampered by a broken immigration system that fails to support a predictable and stable workforce. Moreover, there continue to be insufficient U.S.-born workers to fill labor needs: of those crop workers surveyed between 2007 and 2009, 71 percent were foreign born.”
“The Senate’s Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act (S. 744) represents a good opportunity for our country to modernize our immigration system,” the report argues. “Among its most important provisions, the bipartisan bill would provide an earned path to citizenship for unauthorized farmworkers who are vital to our nation’s agriculture industry, and a new temporary worker program negotiated by major grower associations and farmworker groups.”
“According to the White House report, comprehensive immigration reform will spur California’s economy and create approximately 70,070 new jobs in 2014,” Congressman Garamendi’s office stated. “This legislation would foster innovation and business growth, raise workers’ income, and increase state and local tax revenue. 36.6 percent of business owners in California are immigrants, and 38.3 percent of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduates at California’s best universities are immigrants.”
The report found that California especially suffers from agricultural labor shortfalls in the production of fruit and vegetables, and in support activities such as farm labor contractors and crew leaders, soil preparation, and planting and cultivating. Under existing laws, if farms in California were suddenly denied access to all unauthorized workers, they would lose $1.7 billion to $3.1 billion in revenues due to lost production.
“If comprehensive immigration reform is derailed, it will continue to put California’s farms in a lose-lose situation. Too many farmers are stuck with the unenviable choice of hiring undocumented workers or seeing some of their fields go fallow. When Alabama passed a draconian anti-immigration bill, we saw the result: undocumented immigrants fled the state, prison labor began to be used, and crops withered on the vine. There’s a better path forward, and that path is comprehensive immigration reform,” Congressman Garamendi added.
These details come on the heels of another recent study that found immigration reform would be a boon to our nation’s GDP and economy as a whole, while expanding the country’s labor force, producing higher productivity and higher wages, reducing the deficit, and strengthening Social Security.
In June, a broad bipartisan coalition in the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform by a vote of 68 to 32.
“It’s time for the House to take up this or a similar bill and act to fix our broken immigration system,” Mr. Garamendi stated.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David wrote:
> Garamendi Pushes For Immigration Reform in Wake of
> New Study Showing Economic Benefits to Families
> and Businesses in California
This should read:
“Garamendi Pushes For Immigration Reform in Wake of New Study Showing Economic Benefits to wealthy Families (who get cheap produce, cheap house cleaning and cheap gardening) and Businesses (who get cheap labor who will often work long hours without overtime) in California. Like most politicians Garamendi does not care that the state has higher unemployment than 40 other states because it allows the business (that donate to him) to make more money and the majority of the U.S. citizens (of all racial backgrounds) with little education who are out of work don’t bother to vote.”
let’s walk through this…
benefits:
1. consumers who pay less for produce
2. immigrant employees looking for opportunities
3. underemployed sector of the economy
so what exactly is the drawback?
[i]so what exactly is the drawback?[/i]
– Fewer job opportunities for existing Americans
– Depressed wages
– Fewer opportunities for young people to learn a trade as skilled migrants do the jobs for what should be starting wages
– Demographic shifts to lower average socio-economic class
– Crime increases
– Continued degradation of public education quality from increased student English language challenges
– Cultural erosion
– Increased social welfare costs from greater numbers of poor and uneducated immigrants and from the impact of depressed wages that cause more existing Americans to stay on welfare rather than work.
– Strengthening of Democrat populist political power
– Increased class stratification as labor wages depress, but business owners and investors increase profit margins.
I could keep going and going…
Frankly, these types of arguments were the same used to protest the arrival of many immigrants. Most are selfish and self serving do not reflect the values this country was founded on.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Things have changed………………
they really haven’t changed, if you look at the history of this nation, every time there has been a wave of immigration, the native populace has panicked, tried to enact draconian laws and worried about assimilation, displacement of workforce and other issues. in time, an equilibrium emerges.
B Nice. All good things must come to an end at some point. This policy was established because the US did not have enough people and there were plenty of natural resources to be exploited.
Today the US is the third most populated country in the world. Our national debt and budget deficits per GDP have grown unsustainable. Our natural resources are in short supply.
You cannot be the charity provider for the world forever… at some point we just run out of other people’s money to care for them.
It is a brainless position to keep referring back to that placard as justification for continuing… especially when the numbers we are dealing with today are several orders of magnitude higher than anything perceived at the time it was produced. There are many examples throughout history where demographic changes resulted in the decline and eventual disappearance of whole civilizations. Those liberal-loved Northern European countries we keep hearing about as models we should strive to become are much more culturally homogeneous and have stricter controls on immigration. They also don’t have a long porous border with an adjacent country pumping millions of poor and uneducated people in.
Here is the deal… your position on immigration is screwing American children. I have earned my stuff and I will be fine, but our kids are suffering from a giant lack of opportunity that has been exacerbated by out of control immigration from south of the border.
This isn’t the same immigration debate as our past immigration debates.
“Here is the deal… your position on immigration is screwing American children”
Your anti-immigration position is screwing Mexican children. Our American children inherently more worthy?
[quote]Your anti-immigration position is screwing Mexican children. Our American children inherently more worthy? [/quote]
LOL, so are we to set our policies on what’s best for children from other countries? Get real.
What evidence do you have that the policy is “screwing American children?”
The CBO did not include state and local government cost of immigration reform as proposed.
[quote]The Congressional Budget Office issued a report this week analyzing an earlier version of the Senate bill. CBO estimated the legislation would reduce the federal deficit by $175 billion over the first ten years. Backers of the legislation quickly trumpeted the report as an additional reason to support the bill. However, both the context and the big picture are missing from the CBO report.
While illegal immigrants may be underreporting income taxes, sales and property taxes are much harder for them to avoid. Even if they rent, the landlord is paying property tax. When they shop, they are paying sales tax. The immigrants in question are already paying tickets, fines, recreation league fees for their kids, and all sorts of other charges and fees for services that state and local governments impose.
Further, state and local governments are likely to face a much larger increase in costs than the federal government. Foremost, that is because they provide education. While all children are already allowed to attend public school, legalization will encourage more immigrants to bring their families here, married immigrants already here to have more children, and even make it easier for the unmarried immigrants to become married. It may also lower the dropout rate among the immigrants’ children because it will make it much easier for them to attend college. This portends an increase in public school enrollment, increasing the most expensive state and local government service of all. Legalization is also likely to increase the use by immigrants of all sorts of other state and local government services—driver services, libraries, public health clinics, recreation programs. Without fear of deportation, immigrants will demand and use more government services. All these services cost money and while some charge fees, the fees rarely cover the full cost of the services.
A 2011 report by Jack Martin and Erik Ruark of the Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that illegal immigrants are costing state and local governments around $80 billion per year currently. That number represents the net impact of their imposed costs minus the revenue they are paying in taxes and fees. Just a 15-20 percent increase in the burden on state and local governments would be enough to completely offset any fiscal gains by the federal government.
Even if the CBO report is correct, the big picture fiscal impact on governments of all levels is very different from the impact on just the federal government. Because state and local governments will bear more of the cost burden and gain less in new tax revenue, the potential gains to the federal government budget are likely to be more than offset by losses to state and local governments.
There may be social, societal, moral, and other reasons to support immigration reform along the lines currently being debated. Liberals are swayed by a sense of social justice. Some conservatives are drawn to the work ethic of many immigrants and our country’s tradition of waves of immigrants. Libertarians tend to favor open borders as long as the immigrants cannot claim government benefits. The political motivations of it are clear. Politicians are pandering for votes, plus some may also believe they are doing the right thing.
What has been somewhat lacking from the debate is the economic argument. The CBO report adds a little economic content, but it is a very limited and selective glimpse at the full economic impact of legalization. One can argue about some of the CBO’s estimates, but the main issues with their report arise from their statutory limitations, both in how their modeling is done and in the fact that they only report the impact on the federal budget.[/quote]
You’re comparing the CBO which is not partisan to the report by an interest group.
“A 2011 report by Jack Martin and Erik Ruark of the Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that illegal immigrants are costing state and local governments around $80 billion per year currently. “
Based on what?
[url]http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/05/the-fiscal-cost-of-unlawful-immigrants-and-amnesty-to-the-us-taxpayer[/url]
[quote]The cost of illegal immigration and amnesty could amount to $6.3 trillion, which would fall on American taxpayers over the long term, according to a Heritage Foundation analysis. As Heritage showed, the majority of illegal immigrants receiving amnesty would receive far more in taxpayer-funded benefits than they would pay in taxes. Even critics of the Heritage study admit amnesty will cost trillions of dollars. Whether it is $4 trillion, $6 trillion or more, the additional costs to the U.S. taxpayer are still too high
Here are a few factors that could drive the cost even higher.
1) The number of illegal immigrants may be higher
2) Medical and welfare inflation in future years is likely to increase future costs
3) Because the analysis measured costs mainly by household, it likely excluded about 20 percent of illegal immigrants
4) Amnesty may act as a “magnet” for future illegal immigrants
[/quote]
[i]Your anti-immigration position is screwing Mexican children. Our American children inherently more worthy?[/i]
What about..
– African children?
– Muslim children?
– Indian children?
– Chinese children?
– Canadian children?
– Greek children?
– etc., etc., etc.,
You seem to be quite selective about the nationality of children you care about not screwing with our immigration policy. For me, I tend to want to take care of American children first. Do you think we can and should take care of the children of all nations, or only Mexico?
I don’t find any of these studies very compelling on either side of the debate, since they have a lot of underlying assumptions that are probably dubious. I think we need comprehensive immigration reform, and the bill that passed the Senate is probably the best compromise we are going to get. So Speaker Boehner should bring it to the floor of the House for a vote. But he won’t because that would violate the Hastert Rule.
Frankly: Heritage Foundation vs. CBO? Really?
“You seem to be quite selective about the nationality of children you care about not screwing with our immigration policy. “
Nope, all kids. I don’t think any child has an inherent right to something because they are lucky enough to be born in this country. I don’t think it’s okay to say to a kid who happens to be born on the other side of a border “sorry you don’t deserve the same access to education, health care, etc. as my kids.” It’s immoral and un-American. .
B. Nice. Thanks for being honest. I appreciate you wearing your liberal heart on your sleeve.
I don’t know if you studied accounting or had any significant experience managing a budget. But I have to ask why don’t you take in thousands of disadvantaged kids from all over the world into your house to mother them and care for them and feed them and educated them?
The unfortunate thing about these “save the world” impulses is that math happens.
Here is the fundamental problem with the CBO analysis:
[quote]The source of the CBO’s projected surplus is that legalized immigrants will pay Social Security taxes over the first 10 years while receiving virtually no benefits. Only “0.5% (of foreign-born individuals) would qualify (for Social Security) by the end of their 10th year,” CBO says.
But the CBO ignores the fact that the immigration reform bill makes Social Security an even worse pyramid scheme than it already is. It counts each year’s Social Security contributions by immigrants in the positive column without making provisions for future benefits, which will be about twice what the immigrants contributed over the long term.[/quote]
In other words, if the government, like all other business entities, had to book all expected new liabilities at the same time they got to book any expected new revenues, the math would be completely different and would demonstrate a big loss.
So, yes David. I trust the Heritage Foundation much more than I do the CBO, because the CBO does not have to follow GAAP or any other standard accounting practice. The CBO also said that Obamacare would save us all a pile of money.
“But I have to ask why don’t you take in thousands of disadvantaged kids from all over the world into your house to mother them and care for them and feed them and educated them? “
I wish I could, but it takes a Village.
[i]I wish I could, but it takes a Village.[/i]
Come now, if you had enough money you could build a village and hire all the people you would need to run the village.
Davis is an expensive place to live. You could move to West Sacramento or Woodland or Dixon and save some money that you could at least donate to someone else running a village to help disadvantaged children.
Of course I am trying to make a point here. That point is that you cannot save everyone and would will cause a big mess trying to do so without having the resources to do it. The US has done more to help the children of other countries that any other country today or before. The work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (funded by private for-profit pursuits that I’m sure you abhor) has provided tremendous help for children internationally.
If you really want to help the children of the world, you might consider throwing stronger support to the type of economic policies that support stronger economic growth… rather than supporting policies that punish those that would grow the economy and saddling them with mound of unsustainable debt just to satiate this emotional need to try and save every kid by giving them free stuff distributed by the government and funded by a shrinking pool of other people’s money.
I love the work of the Gates Foundation, and the Carter Foundation, and other similar NGO’s. So just to clarify; you oppose this immigration reform bill?
Don Shor
[quote]But he won’t because that would violate the Hastert Rule. [/quote]
Hey Don, how many bills have passed the House that Harry Reid refuses to bring up for a vote in the Senate. Do some Googling and report back, I think you’ll be amazed.
I would, but the topic of this thread is immigration reform. So, do you support or oppose the immigration bill?
[i]you oppose this immigration reform bill?[/i]
I oppose this bill as written.
Is it worse than the status quo?
There also seems to be a certain segment of society advocating for all illegal immigrants to have full access to all non-emergent care at taxpayers expense. The is currently a group of illegals on a hunger strike in Chicago demanding taxpayer funded renal transplants. They are already getting dialysis at taxpayer expense. The hospital stated the cost of a renal transplant it $100-200,000, plus another 10K/yr for medication. Given that the transplant lists are based on acuity, with the most seriously ill getting the transplant first, I can imagine how the waiting lists would grow exponentially once word is out that if you just sneak across the border you can get your kidney, liver, lung, etc transplant courtesy of
continued…
courtesy of those wonderfully generous Americans.
Hey B. Nice, should Americans also give our organs to foreignors who need a transplant that might cost an American their place in line for their needed transplant?
“There also seems to be a certain segment of society advocating for all illegal immigrants to have full access to all non-emergent care at taxpayers expense…courtesy of those wonderfully generous Americans. “
“Hey B. Nice, should Americans also give our organs to foreignors who need a transplant that might cost an American their place in line for their needed transplant?”
With all that straw, keep the water buckets handy.
Generosity is still considered a virtue in most cultures, I believe.
In most Western Countries, healthcare is considered a basic human right.
As to immigration reform, we in California have given a wink and a nod to labour contractors filling our fields with labourers who had no standing in courts and could be dealt with by a simple phone call to INS. This reform is a step toward making that system just, accountable and more efficient. It will undoubtedly be blocked by the party of no shame and fewer ideas.
Biddlin ;>)/
Frankly keep spouting Heritage reactionary right wing nonsense its working so well that the CA Assembly temporarily doesn’t have a 2/3 Democratic majority. You are coming on strong. Did you see where Rep Jeff Denham came out for comprehensive reform? Denham and another Central Valley Republican broke ranks. Why? Because they are from districts with large latino populations and they know they can’t win if they block reform. So just keep on keeping on and help secure California’s 54 electoral votes blue. Help keep all statewide elected offices blue. Help keep CA Republicans super minority status in the legislature. By the way its not about free stuff, although I’m sure you can find the occasional exception, its about deporting grandma. You want my grandma deported i will never vote for you.
Mr. Toad – I am never running so please DON’T vote for me.
But to your point… if Republicans have to damage our children’s future, and send our cities, states and country into greater debt, just to pander to the Latino vote. Democrats can have them all. Atlas will just shrug and watch it all implode.
The Democrat’s main selling point is using other people’s money giving away free stuff to people that will vote for them. It is weak leader populist politics. We are not quiet the same as Greece, Argentina and Venezuela… but it is were we are headed.
The question is… will enough Latino voters pay attention to what the Democrats have done for the black community, and then wake from their trance of dreaming about free stuff to join the party that would show them the way to a real share of earned wealth and strong families.
You know the saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” The problem many late arriving immigrant Latinos seem to have right now is that they are actually in bed with their enemy and they have not figured it out.
[quote]In most Western Countries, healthcare is considered a basic human right. [/quote]
Are you telling us that as a U.S. citizen if we go illegally to another Western country that we will get free healthcare?
If you are an American citizen and go to certain other countries like Canada or Germany it is easier than you might think to get treated. I’m not an expert on the mechanics but the answer is sometimes more yes than you think.
So, what immigration reform would you support, if not this bill?
[quote]Are you telling us that as a U.S. citizen if we go illegally to another Western country that we will get free healthcare?[/quote]
I don’t think there’s a single answer to that question, since there are so many variations of health coverage in other countries.
I really am curious about the response of opponents of this bill. In the current political situation, this compromise IMO is the only bill likely to pass. So it is literally a choice between this legislation and the status quo. If you don’t support this, do you prefer nothing? No immigration bill? What changes that are actually possible to achieve would you support?
A bill that first deals with border security with verifiable, measurable results.
Then we can implement reform for those that are here.
I think if the Democrats would support this approach, the Republicans would support this approach.
However, the Demoncrats know that the immigration issue is divisive and favors them if they keep ginning it up as Republican racism. Also, they don’t like stopping the flow of illegals that grow to become good reliable moocher-Demoncrat voters.
“I am never running so please DON’T vote for me. “
You run your fingers over the keys and say things similar to Mitt Romney and Jim Demint. With guys like you, Tom Tancredo, Steve Poizoner, Meg Whitman, Steve King, Tim Donnely and the conservative media echo chamber each doing its part California will remain a blue state lock. Thanks for all your efforts.
[quote]A bill that first deals with border security with verifiable, measurable results.
[/quote]
So the senators dealt with that, I thought.
[url]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-21/senators-reach-border-security-deal-in-immigration-bill.html[/url]
[quote]The agreement on the security issue, struck at the behest of Republicans and grudgingly accepted by Democrats, would double the U.S. Border Patrol’s size by adding 20,000 agents and also require 700 miles of fencing at the U.S.-Mexico border. It would provide additional unmanned aerial drones to help police the border.
…
The compromise amendment would require the Department of Homeland Security to certify that the added border-security resources are in place before undocumented immigrants could receive permanent legal status, said South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the bill’s Republican co-sponsors.[/quote]
“If Republicans have to damage our children’s future, and send our cities, states and country into greater debt, just to pander to the Latino vote. Democrats can have them all. Atlas will just shrug and watch it all implode.”
i love it. You would rather be right than win, although I dispute your righteousness, anyway you are going to remain a disgruntled minority. The Republicans nationally are where the California Republicans were last decade. Their house majority can obstruct due to gerrymandering, and now, voter suppression. But just like in California the dam will eventually be broken nationally and you will be swept away by the tide of history. I can hear you now your muffled complaints coming out of the barrel as you go over the Niagara Falls of xenophobia.
Who knows, maybe the Republicans will wake up and pass immigration reform before doing even more damage to their brand. It could happen but if you go to some town hall meetings with the old, white, uncompromising , tea party out in force, threatening primary challenges, it may end badly for both immigrants and the Republican Party.
“Are you telling us that as a U.S. citizen if we go illegally to another Western country that we will get free healthcare?”
In Canada,The U.K. Denmark, Sweden, Finland,iceland and of course Cuba, you will.
Biddlin ;>)/
It seems this bill mixes in policies on naturalization of those immigrants here illegally, and policies on levels for legal immigration.
These issues should be legislated separately.
A lot of discussion about farm work. Data shows that only 5% of immigrants in the USA illegally are farm workers; most are in construction, landscaping, housekeeping, etc.
I’m among those who would support some kind of naturalization program; but such legislation should be brought forward after and only after the southern USA border is tightly secured. Right now, I would support a bill to significantly strengthen the border; such that even when the economy picks up in the USA, the border is so difficult to cross that very few would be able to make it across (eventually very few would bother even trying). Then, some kind of legislation like that currently being proposed, as a path for citizenship for those here illegally.
Why not let people come if they want to come? What is this obsession with the border. As long as they are law abiding and not carrying communicable disease what is the problem?
Would like to thank Frankly for balancing the pro-economic side of immigration with the con side; which is quite real and I believe outweighs the pro side, on economic factors alone. One of the changes in this country is that now it is fairly full of people–those areas that are desirable to live in have gotton pretty crowded and congested–care to have even bigger and more crowded cities, highways, roads, schools, etc? How about even more intense competition for land and homes; so that your children will pay even more for homes than now; or simply won’t be able to afford one with the ever-increasing competition? Of course the big corporate/government/finance machine benefits from ever-increasing immigration levels; and so continuously markets and exagerates the benefits side of immigration to sell this to the public–who do you think sits on the university boards who decides what kind of economic philosophies (and thus of academic staff) should be put out by the Departments of Economics?
On a related more personal economic note for Davis residents, regarding population growth: Do you think it would have been considered necessary to contribute our share ~$110-120 million for the surface water project had the population growth in Davis been essentially stabilized over the last few decades, with projections into the future for stability?
I think many people are deluded into considering only the pro side and not the con side of unending growth in population; as the mainstream media and our corporate/government/financial machine markets and pushes for unending growth; in the end it is a giant Ponzi scheme on a finite earth, that pushes a large crash a few years further into the future; in which case it will be even larger.
So 20,000 more agents, 700 miles of fencing, and certification by the DHS is not sufficiently secure?
Apparently not; as our economy has been picking up so has the crossing rate.
It would seem that in accord with the will of the majority of the USA population, the government feels political pressure to make it appear that they are doing something to slow down illegal immigration; but in fact this appearance is more important than actually spending resources more effectively (e.g. hiring teams of lawyers to find some kind of dirt that they can make stick on Sheriff Joe–to show I’m not partisan on this; much like the team of lawyers led by the scumbag special prosecutor who went on a fishing expedition against Clinton when he was president).
Consider that the old (now torn down in part) Berlin wall; built about 68 years ago now with technology over 68 years old; was quite successful in slowing down defection from east to west to a small trickle.
“Do you think it would have been considered necessary to contribute our share ~$110-120 million for the surface water project had the population growth in Davis been essentially stabilized over the last few decades, with projections into the future for stability?”
if we didn’t build UC Davis here we wouldn’t need any infrastructure. We could be Dixon, Esparto or Yolo. We could have let some other community have the University farm and your vision could have been implemented. Alas the state decided to build a university here and it would have the mission of education and research to benefit the entire state, the nation and the world. You could not have the limited community you envision and not have the university we have today. Its either or not parts of one but not the other.
Frankly
[quote]All good things must come to an end at some point. This policy was established because the US did not have enough people and there were plenty of natural resources to be exploited.
[/quote]
And I would point out that your first sentence could equally well be applied to your conception that the words of the founding fathers should be taken literally according to their own understanding at the time. Unless, of course it involves economics, in which case you seem to believe in changing the principles on which the nation was founded. I think that the Constitution and Bill of Rights should be interpreted as conceptually very sound, but subject to changing times and practicalities whether in the economic or social realm.
“One of the changes in this country is that now it is fairly full of people–those areas that are desirable to live in have gotton pretty crowded and congested–care to have even bigger and more crowded cities, highways, roads, schools, etc? How about even more intense competition for land and homes; so that your children will pay even more for homes than now; or simply won’t be able to afford one with the ever-increasing competition?”
Not really. We produce more food than ever, houses, outside of Davis, are relatively cheap. They could be cheaper in Davis if we built a lot more of them. As Robert Shiller showed home prices, adjusted for inflation, have been flat for 100 years. Our schools already are under capacity. Sacramento just closed a bunch of them. Roads always fill to capacity no matter how big you make them. LA had traffic jams in the 1960’s and has them today. We are not full in this country or this city. You want to see someplace full try Jakarta or any other part of Java. We are a long ways from Dante’s Inferno of overpopulation here in Davis, in California, or the USA.
[i]Why not let people come if they want to come? What is this obsession with the border. As long as they are law abiding and not carrying communicable disease what is the problem?[/i]
Oh gosh. Well then, why not let more people move to Davis? Note, that was a rhetorical question which I will answer shortly.
Here is the problem in a nutshell.
Going back we had immigrants come to America to make a go of it, and many went back. There were no cradle to grave social welfare programs and no Medicaid to mooch on. Only the strong, industrious, creative and ambitious stayed. This filtering process created our greatness… it has always been the American people that are our greatness.
Well we now turned the filter inside out. Many of the strong, industrious, creative and ambitious grab an education or learn our industrial trade secrets and scuttle back home where they have more opportunity to trade for wealth. And those that can’t just stick around increasing our population of needy.
The answer to why we cannot open our borders started with FDR and continued with the broken idea that we can legislate fair outcomes by giving away free stuff to anybody with a hand out. We simply cannot afford to add another immigrant to the our population unless that immigrant at least can cover his nut.
And, that is how we keep all those undesirables out of lily-white Davis. People would move here, but with our artificially inflated housing costs, they would not be able to cover their nut. So we subsidize a few homes to at least eliminate some of our guilt. But we might as well put up a border fence and implement a Davis immigration policy that ensures we don’t let TOO MANY of THOSE PEOPLE in.
“Apparently not; as our economy has been picking up so has the crossing rate. “
There has always been that relationship for the last 100 years. Good economy more immigration. Bad economy less immigration. What’s the big deal? People coming to try to have a better life and more money. Why did your ancestors come. Mine came for religious freedom, economic opportunity and to not die as canon fodder in the Czar’s army. How is that different from those coming today? I say if they want to come and become law abiding, tax paying citizens of the USA we should welcome them just as the Democrats in Chicago welcomed my family over 100 years ago.
[i]We are a long ways from Dante’s Inferno of overpopulation here in Davis, in California[/i]
That would be fine if we didn’t allow the government to give everyone so much free crap. We are over populated in charity cases. It does not matter how much vacant land or cheap housing we have if people cannot provide enough for themselves and we have to subsidize them.
It is simple… liberals have already run out of other people’s money.
So, sorry immigrants. No more room at the cash-strapped inn.
“And, that is how we keep all those undesirables out of lily-white Davis. People would move here, but with our artificially inflated housing costs, they would not be able to cover their nut. So we subsidize a few homes to at least eliminate some of our guilt. But we might as well put up a border fence and implement a Davis immigration policy that ensures we don’t let TOO MANY of THOSE PEOPLE in.”
At least you have that part right but as you know I’m for opening up the town as well so at least I’m consistent. You on the other hand seem confused and obsessed over Democrats going back to the New Deal. Would you prefer we didn’t have Social Security or Medicare? Is there no safety net too loose that you would accept it? You want to argue that because we have a social safety net we can no longer afford to let people come here for a better life. Are you serious?
“It is simple… liberals have already run out of other people’s money.”
Why do you blame this on liberals? Reagan and both Bushes ran up huge deficits. When Carter left office the national debt was around $500 billion. Sadly Bush (43) did it by cutting taxes when the economy was good and he was fighting two wars. At least Obama did it as counter cyclical spending because he was handed the worst hand since FDR.
Since this bill is largely about the immigrants who are already here, I guess my next question is what you intend to do about them. Round them up and send them home? What I’m hearing from opponents of this bill is that they wouldn’t support any immigration bill that would allow immigrants to come and/or stay here.
As far as I’m concerned, this bill is a real test of whether Congress can function. If you’re in the minority, and you oppose a bill, but you recognize reality, then you work to make it better. If you’re in the majority but don’t quite have the votes to pass it, you accept some modifications to get those votes. Seems to me that’s been done, and that the Senate bill addresses the issues to the greatest extent possible given our current political framework.
[i]Why do you blame this on liberals? Reagan and both Bushes ran up huge deficits. When Carter left office the national debt was around $500 billion. Sadly Bush (43) did it by cutting taxes when the economy was good and he was fighting two wars. At least Obama did it as counter cyclical spending because he was handed the worst hand since FDR. [/i]
Could not resist another excuse for the Teflon Messiah, huh. I’m sure ten years from now you will still be blaming others for his dismal performance and long list of failures.
To answer your question, liberalism (or social Democrats if you want to make yourself feel better calling them that) – the kind that acquires and keeps its power from a populist platform – really got rolling with FDR. That was where the liberalizing of American politicians started and we never looked back.
We have not had a real conservative in the White House since Hoover. Hoover did pretty much what the Tea Party would like our President to do. It is interesting, because Hoover was the last cutting President, yet there is little media attention paid to his Presidency. It makes for better copy to play the stories of those big men that fought wars, started great society programs, and basically plunged the country deeper in debt. Real leadership is lonely and thankless. Those seeking adulation, glory and legacy cannot do the job. But we keep electing them.
Yes, Republicans should run on a return-to-Hoover platform. That should bring them back.
So, what do you think we should do about the millions of immigrants who are currently here?
Mr. Toad wrote:
> If you are an American citizen and go to certain other
> countries like Canada or Germany it is easier than you
> might think to get treated. I’m not an expert on the
> mechanics but the answer is sometimes more yes than you think.
I’m also not an expert on free international health care, but when I was in Whistler about 10 years ago with a friend that tore his ACL he had to wire money from the US before they would give him even the most basic care beyond his ride down the mountain from the ski patrol (he flew back to the US and had his ACL repaired here). The NY Times says: “Only legal residents qualify for free medical care in Canada”.
Another Google search found on the US department of State web site: “If you are not a resident of Germany, doctors and hospitals may expect immediate payment in cash”.
Then Don wrote:
> Since this bill is largely about the immigrants who are
> already here, I guess my next question is what you intend
> to do about them. Round them up and send them home?
If we require business owners and apartment owners to only hire and rent to legal residents (and start putting the business owners and apartment owners that break the law in jail) we will soon have a lot of homeless people without jobs and most will go home on their own (since it is not fun to be homeless without a job)…
P.S. I know that our elected officials will never do this…
Frankly: [i]A bill that first deals with border security with verifiable, measurable results.[/i]
We seem to have achieved that already:
4/23/2012: Net Migration from Mexico Falls to Zero—and Perhaps Less ([url]http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/23/net-migration-from-mexico-falls-to-zero-and-perhaps-less/[/url])
[quote]The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill. After four decades that brought 12 million current immigrants—most of whom came illegally—the net migration flow from Mexico to the United States has stopped and may have reversed, according to a new analysis of government data from both countries by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.[/quote]
So your first point is moot.
[i]Then we can implement reform for those that are here.[/i]
And what would you propose?
[quote]If we require business owners and apartment owners to only hire and rent to legal residents (and start putting the business owners and apartment owners that break the law in jail) we will soon have a lot of homeless people without jobs and most will go home on their own (since it is not fun to be homeless without a job)… [/quote]
Please clarify: is this what you are advocating? You think we should take action to make the illegal immigrants that are here unemployed and homeless?
” One of the changes in this country is that now it is fairly full of people”
Does that possibly explain why immigration has slowed in the past few years?
” One of the changes in this country is that now it is fairly full of people”
Does that possibly explain why immigration has slowed in the past few years?
Go to bed David both the quote and your response are absurd.
I stand corrected on Canada. A friend told me he once needed medical attention in Germany and never got a bill. He said the doctor laughed when he asked about paying.
I just got up. How is my response absurd? If there are too many people immigrating into this country, employment opportunities would wane and immigration would slow, which is what has happened.
[quote]I stand corrected on Canada. A friend told me he once needed medical attention in Germany and never got a bill. He said the doctor laughed when he asked about paying. [/quote]
You better have a way to pay too in Germany if you’re visiting, their national healthcare is only for their own citizens.
I wrote:
> If we require business owners and apartment owners
> to only hire and rent to legal residents (and start
> putting the business owners and apartment owners that
> break the law in jail) we will soon have a lot of
> homeless people without jobs and most will go home
> on their own (since it is not fun to be homeless
> without a job)…
Then Don wrote:
> Please clarify: is this what you are advocating? You
> think we should take action to make the illegal immigrants
> that are here unemployed and homeless?
I’m not “advocating” it, but it would work…
Unfortunately since almost all Democrats and Republicans are OK with “illegal” immigration (Democrats like the votes and both Republicans and Democrats love the “protection” money they can extort) politicians will look the other way as long as you pay them off (aka make plenty of generous campaign contributions). My brother in law grew up in the Monterey County produce business where the government is worse than the mob at extorting “protection” so you can use low paid illegal workers.
If I wanted to open a illegal garden supply store in my garage in College Park the city would shut me down in a day, but if I hired 20 illegals and started a gardening company I would be fine (working my illegals 12 hours a day below minimum wage) for years as long as I was a generous campaign donor.
[i]I just got up. How is my response absurd? If there are too many people immigrating into this country, employment opportunities would wane and immigration would slow, which is what has happened.[/i]
I think Toad has made the case that we do not have too many people.
To be sure, America is down the list of countries in terms of population density. But like Russia, there is a great amount of land that is relatively uninhabitable… or only able to sustain a very sparse population. And, a lot of land is reserved as federal and state parks and wilderness area. Go to our major population centers on the coasts and we are packed to the rim.
But the issue isn’t the number of people per square mile, the issue is the number of people per job, the number of people per acre of usable/inhabitable land and the number of people that require or are given public assistance.
Frankly: I’m surprised that your anti-union tendencies don’t put you on the other side of this issue. Lack of cheap labor drives up food prices, and gives unions more potential bargaining power. Which is what is happening now:
Farmers Warn High Demand For Workers Will Cost Consumers ([url]http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2013/08/04/famers-warn-high-demand-for-workers-will-cost-consumers/[/url])
This article is consistent with my previous posting explaining that Latino-Americans have actually been leaving the country in recent months (something to cheer about, huh, Frankly?). So what we have is a situation that ends up screwing everybody with higher food prices.
[i]Frankly: I’m surprised that your anti-union tendencies don’t put you on the other side of this issue. Lack of cheap labor drives up food prices, and gives unions more potential bargaining power. Which is what is happening now[/i]
I view business’s demand that we import so much cheap labor as just another form (albeit an indirect form) of entitlement spending. Certainly it helps with our trade deficit if we can create products cheaper using imported cheap labor; but otherwise what we are doing is creating a incongruous (them and us) labor situation where the US has advanced such and grown such that resource costs are high, and the high resource costs demand higher wages.
What is it going to cost the average American to retire at age 65 assuming they live until they are 90 or more years of age? We all need to be saving more. But because wages have depressed so far from so much imported cheap labor, the people that can find a job are often stuck living pay-check-to-pay-check.
But we do also have global competition putting downward pressure on wages.
My view is that it is right to respond to the need to compete in the global marketplace within our domestic economic system that derives as much value per dollar of labor possible.
And we need to support some labor to help with our supply and demand management of certain skill categories.
But there is no shortage of manpower in this country to do low and medium-skilled jobs. It is just that imported cheap labor depressing the wages that would otherwise have to be paid, while also causing a certain stigma to the types of work.
Unions have the opposite distortion-impact on wages. There is a leveling of wage-to-value that the market would have to settle on. Employees are in effect all independent contractors selling the market value of their labor and skills to employers. Unions use a form of wage extortion to force employers to pay more than the market-value would otherwise be.
I think we should be ridding ourselves of unions and collective bargaining, and also ridding ourselves of the flood of poor and uneducated under-market cheap labor from our southern border… then we go through each disability and welfare case to re-evaluate who can work and we tell them they have to work if they are deemed able-bodied. We also get kids working as part of their education and to help pay for their education.
[i]And we need to support some [b]imported[/b] labor to help with our supply and demand management of certain skill categories.[/i]
Frankly: [i]But because wages have depressed so far from so much imported cheap labor, the people that can find a job are often stuck living pay-check-to-pay-check.[/i]
This all sounds like a framework that unions would actually support. But on the other hand, you think it’s okay to export labor elsewhere, as in to produce goods or services from a distance? but not okay to import labor required for onsite services? It seems like a kind of tribalism that is due to become obsolete at some point in the future.
By the way, it really sounds like a kind of snobbery that you like to accuse your fellow Davisites of, keeping out lower income families with inflated cost of living. But I look forward to your explaining how your motives and values are more pure than that.
Frankly: [i]But because wages have depressed so far from so much imported cheap labor, the people that can find a job are often stuck living pay-check-to-pay-check.[/i]
This all sounds like a framework that unions would actually support. But on the other hand, you think it’s okay to export labor elsewhere, as in to produce goods or services from a distance? but not okay to import labor required for onsite services? It seems like a kind of tribalism that is due to become obsolete at some point in the future.
By the way, it really sounds like a kind of snobbery that you like to accuse your fellow Davisites of, keeping out lower income families with inflated cost of living. But I look forward to your explaining how your motives and values are more pure than that.
wdf1, that is a reasonable challenge…
There is something called nationality. I value national borders and American culture and Americanism. I don’t value city-ality or state-ality. Cities and states have soft borders and we encourage the flow of good, services and labor between them all. But we are a republic. We are not yet a global community… and frankly I doubt we will ever be. I think we cannot be a global community because of nationalism and irreconcilable differences. With respect to other countries, we do not share a Constitution. We do not share a culture based on American ideals.
So your challenge is a non-sequitur given the inherent differences.
[i]you think it’s okay to export labor elsewhere[/I]
If wages would not be artificially inflated by union wage extortion, more companies would remain in the US.
The biggest expense line (other than the impact of bottom line taxation) for 90% of companies is labor costs. So it is understandable that companies would develop business strategy that seeks to minimize labor cost. However, there are other costs too. Shipping for example. If the US is the primary market for products produced by a company, that company will be motivated to locate manufacturing here to reduce freight and shipping costs. However, too expensive labor will just tip the cost-benefit to make other locations more economically desirable.
You can make a case that the same is true for imported labor.
But there are other costs born by imported labor… these costs are born by others and not the company.
Think about it this way, with fewer poor and uneducated immigrants creating this under-market cheap labor pool, but with lower taxes, more business would be motivated to locate here even… paying higher wages. And with more jobs and higher wagers, government takes in a larger share per capita. We move more people of the public assistance roles, and onto the working roles. More people working means less time they have to cause mischief and make bad decisions. Their kids see them working and learn that they too need to work.
America is a better place when more of us are working and earning our own way.
Our nations screwed-up immigration policy and system, combined with union over-reach, have made America a worse place because fewer Americans are working.
Tech industry and agriculture favor immigration reform as passed by the Senate:
[url]http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/315077-tech-and-agriculture-industries-team-up-to-lobby-for-immigration-reform[/url]
Frankly: [i]There is something called nationality. I value national borders and American culture and Americanism.[/i]
I genuinely appreciate a lot of values that America champions, but the way that you and many Republicans have expressed nationalism maybe a little too much tied to pedigree (privilege by right of birth) for my taste — protect national borders, self-deportation, desiring a certain purity of culture, for example. I have known immigrants from non-English-speaking cultures who have been “illegal” or “undocumented”, and yet embraced American values more than I have seen from many native-born citizens. And yet we seek reasons to shun them. We are a nation of immigrants who have attracted like-minded individuals and tended to scorn pedigree. I think that has maintained our vigor.
I can see many instances where immigrants would actually have more affinity for Republican positions, except for their prevailing view on immigration. And ironically, you and many Republicans fear offering a pathway to citizenship because maybe they won’t vote like you. It’s a huge issue of political insecurity, from my perspective. And as a result we lose the opportunity to spread the “good news”.
It’s like assuming that America is only a place and not a state of mind. Or that a church is the building where people worship, rather than the body of congregants. It’s a very limiting perspective, long term.
Opposition to immigration is un-American.
re: wdf1 “It seems like a kind of tribalism that is due to become obsolete at some point in the future.”
I would contend that tribalism will never become obsolete; it is deeply embedded in the makeup of all humans; as it has had a huge survival benefit for all of our ancestors of all races. If I have time I can refer to vast anthropological evidence that supports this contention; tribalism is not to be wiped out with a wish and a prayer; it is part of our makeup; and furthermore I would contend has more of a pro side than a con side. The makeup of tribes is mainly cultural and not racial; history shows that various races/cultures have always been able to assimilate those from other races and tribes, provided these newcomers took on the culture and way of life of the majority.
I’m seriously thinking of changing my login moniker to “tribeUSA” as I feel so strongly about this.
I liken loyalty to groups from the smaller to the larger as being akin to the progression of Maslow’s heirarchy of needs for the human psyche: neglecting tribal loyalty and skipping from loyalty to self (& family) to loyalty to all of humanity worldwide is akin to progressing from the id to the superego; neglecting all of the intermediate steps of development in between (notably the development of a robust ego); it is a pipe dream or fantasy that cannot pass the test of actual living. Assuming that most of us are loyal to self & family; I would contend that only by progressing to a deep loyalty to a heirarchy of tribe or tribes (which would include at the largest scale ‘tribeUSA’, including all USA citizens of all races) that we can then develop and expand to a true loyalty to all of humanity, that is established on deeply felt reality and sharing of interests and not on a vague fantasy that reinforces a notion (achieved gratis with no effort) that the self is a good person (I tread delicately here because I support the ego-based desire to think of self as a good person, but feelings alone achieved without actions are insufficient)
So I would contend that the internationalism that is promoted by our corporate/government/financial controlled mainstream media and academic outlets is a fantasy without any solid grounding in reality; note that at the same time fierce inter-personal competition is also promoted by the corporate/government/financial powers-that-be; we are becoming a winner-take-all society and live in neighborhoods and work in workplaces where we do not necessarily even display much loyalty to our neighbors. A bit schizophrenic huh, be loyal to all humanity but compete with all our being against our neighbor. So pretending that some sort of internationalist system will work well based on some sort of fuzzy kumbaya feeling, though well-intentioned, is just a fantasy; we all must develop a more sound basis and foundation for loyalty to neighbor and up to ‘tribeUSA’ before any real and deeply founded loyalty to global humanity can be achievable beyond a vague fantasy (perhaps a few avatars and saints have achieved this; the rest of us might be wise to be more humble).
On a later thread perhaps I’ll have time to develop how a healthy form of nationalism can develop within a governmental structure such that there are minimal incentives to go to war against other nations (note that we are currently in a mode where internationalism is encouraged by the corporate/government/financial broadcasts; the USA is engaged in initiating as many wars as it ever has been). I would further contend that the parameters of the current trajectory of internationalism at all levels of business and culture will not lead to a wonderful world free of conflict; but instead to worldwide tyranny & descent into hell (more on this on another thread).
What jimt said!
And I think there is a key point embedded in his fine argument about tribalism and the reality of human self-pursuit compared to the fantasy of those that think we can develop some new world order where there is international cooperation.
I think the people pushing this new world order are unrealistic. They ignore so many of the challenges to their vision of a cooperative nirvana and stubbornly insist that for once in history they can make it work. They cannot make it work for one simple reason… human nature.
American and European liberal progressives seem genuinely repelled by much of human nature (ironically while they exhibit the same but deny it); and hence are compelled toward social and political models that attempt to control it or otherwise they adopt a fantasy vision of a world where people voluntarily discard their competitive pursuits at the door to the community.
The great ideas that became the root for America becoming the greatest nation on God’s green earth were developed from a basis of understanding of the then historical trial and error dealing with human nature. People that migrated here were either attracted to those ideas, or else they learned that they had made a mistake and shuffled back home.
It is a country that demands self-determination and exploits the human nature of freedom to pursue self-interest. It is a country that demands competition. It is a country that rewards winners and losers have to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and try again. And the good news is that in this great system, in their lifetime, losers can become winners and winners can become losers.
It is not a system that is a good fit for everyone. But it works better than any other. It works when we honor it and support it for what it is and should be. It breaks when we ignore the basis for what makes it work and attempt to transform it to something else that has been proven over and over again to not work.
I fully support immigration… but with a policy and process that successfully filters out those that do not belong here because their nature does not fit, and a policy and process that fully integrates those that can fit into the American tribe.
Liberal progressive are attempting to transform America into something that welcomes more people that don’t fit. And it is not an issue of race that causes them to not fit, it is their human nature…. their cultural and tribal customs and behavior and values-imprinting… their personality… their internal emotional and cerebral wiring. Some cannot make the cut. Those that can might require several years or even a generation to fully grasp what it means to be an American. And in addition to this flood of mismatched, untrained, people giving liberal progressives the political power to actually succeed at this damaging transformation of the system; they also corrupt existing Americans. They break that idea that a loser must simply dust himself off and try again and again until he is a winner. They become increasingly dependent on others instead of self.
Liberal progressives are dumbing down the game of life American style because their heart bleeds for the loser and they are compelled to save him. Their view is more statist than dynamist… seeing a fixed and unfair class, race, group, gender, sexual orientation… you name it… stratification.
Educated conservatives see it completely differently. They don’t pay attention to superficial attributes; they only care about behavior. And they value American ideas and values and want to see everyone in the country subscribe to these ideas and values, and to behave like a good American. American works when we do this.
No country works having this much diversity without a proven successful set of binding values and behaviors. Liberal progressives are basically destroying American from within from the unintended consequences of their good intentions to transform the country into something else that welcomes people that do not fit, and prevents others from the struggles of learning how to fit.
Frankly: [i]And I think there is a key point embedded in his fine argument about tribalism and the reality of human self-pursuit compared to the fantasy of [b]those[/b] that think we can develop some new world order where there is international cooperation.[/i]
You’ve written a lot of stuff that you would ascribe to me (by implication), but I don’t believe in, and you’re back to your usual stereotyping and generalizing — “conservatives are virtuous, liberals are clueless”, etc. I find this really tedious. It’s a real sign of insecurity in you. And you’ve lost sight of the issue at hand. What is your solution? How about engage the issue and dispense with the generalizing.
There are as many as 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. What do you want to do with them?
I say if they have lived in the U.S. a certain amount of time, have a high school diploma or equivalency, meaning that they also can pass an English test and test of basic American civics and history, haven’t committed a violent felony, and can pass a basic DHS background check, then they can have citizenship. You can quibble with details, but that’s a basic framework. If anyone can pass that, then I think they’re well along on the path to citizenship.
What’s your solution? Status quo? Let them languish as they are? Deport them all?
And all this talk of border security, what are you trying to solve? I’ve pointed out that immigrants aren’t coming to the U.S. from Mexico. In fact, they’re leaving.
jimt: [i]I would contend that tribalism will never become obsolete; it is deeply embedded in the makeup of all humans; as it has had a huge survival benefit for all of our ancestors of all races.[/i]
Then let me clarify that I had in mind centuries into the future.
[quote]And it is not an issue of race that causes them to not fit, it is their human nature…. their cultural and tribal customs and behavior and values-imprinting… their personality… their internal emotional and cerebral wiring. Some cannot make the cut. Those that can might require several years or even a generation to fully grasp what it means to be an American. And in addition to this flood of mismatched, untrained, people giving liberal progressives the political power to actually succeed at this damaging transformation of the system; they also corrupt existing Americans. [/quote]
Wow. All of that is very un-American. I’m sorry you hate America so much that you detest our entire history. It’s sad. Too bad especially that you think ‘others’ are corrupting you. The way Germans did, and Italians, and all those others. Just curious: when you put up a Christmas tree, or eat a hot dog, do you feel corrupted by those dang Germans polluting your English customs?
How immigrants are assimilating: [img]http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/blogs/2010w23/_47647881_generation_next_language.gif[/img]
…and that I observe a tendency toward less tribalism today than in the past…
[i]conservatives are virtuous, liberals are clueless[/i]
Never wrote that. What I have written is that the average (educated by default) liberal progressive subscribes to ideas that are more wrong and more damaging to the whole; while the average educated conservative subscribes to ideas that are more right and more beneficial to the whole.
[i]And all this talk of border security, what are you trying to solve? I’ve pointed out that immigrants aren’t coming to the U.S. from Mexico. In fact, they’re leaving.[/I]
Well here is an illustration of the problem…
[img]http://www.cscdc.org/miscfrank/mexicanemployment.jpg[/img]
And by the way, this graph does not include the increase in the numbers of people that dropped out of looking for work. It also does not include the numbers of people that have succeeded in claiming disability.
There is also a great deal of discrepancy with the government reports of illegal immigration flow and the reports from border states and independent observation.
[quote]FALFURRIAS, Texas, June 17 (UPI) — The flow of immigrants trying to enter the United States illegally has shifted from the Tucson area to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, officials said.
Local officials say the Rio Grande Valley has replaced the Tucson enforcement zone as the hot border-crossing spot, with rafts crossing the river in greater numbers, car chases along rural roads and an increasing number of bodies being found on ranchers’ land, The New York Times reported Sunday.
“There is just so much happening at the same time — it is overwhelming,” said Benny Martinez, chief deputy with the Brooks County Sheriff’s Department.[/quote]
[quote]Against the backdrop of a national debate over immigration and several years of low numbers of people illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, early signs of an increase in illegal migration are being reported by ranchers, social service agencies and the U.S. Border Patrol along the 388-mile border in Arizona.
Ranchers said they have seen increasing numbers of crossers on their land in southern Arizona. Shelters in Mexico have also reported more migrants using their facilities and U.S. officials said they are rescuing more immigrants in the Sonoran Desert.
Sue and Jim Chilton, whose ranch has a 5½ mile border with Mexico, said that cut fences, broken water lines, trails of trash bags and immigrants photographed on remote cameras are indicators of an increased number of crossers.
Across the border in Mexico, Juan Francisco Loureiro and his wife, Gilda, who run the San Juan Bosco shelter for migrants in Nogales, Sonora, said they have provided shelter for 22,248 border-crossers this year — compared with 21,304 by the same time last year.
And though the number of arrests of unauthorized immigrants in the United States has remained steady, U.S. officials are reporting more rescues of immigrants in the Arizona desert. Between Oct. 1, 2011, and May 1, 2012, there were 202 rescues; in the same period this year, there have been 263 rescues, according to Andy Adame, spokesman for Border Patrol in Arizona. In all of 2012, the Border Patrol reported that it had rescued 634 immigrants, an increase of 120 from 2011.[/quote]
And if the economy is really improving, then the number will continue to increase.
As I have written, I am fine with an amnesty that includes a rigorous path to citizenship for people here… only after the border is effectively sealed. I also support a more advanced and accountable work visa program that is dynamic and responsive to American industry but in consideration of our REAL unemployment situation which includes the number of people on public assistance, and those that are able-bodied but have taken themselves out of the workforce for some reason.
Here is the order of policy that I would need to see to support the type of immigration reform being pushed by policy makers.
– Near absolute border security… with validation from border state authorities.
– Welfare reform (there are people that can and should be working that are not)
– Education reform (We should be training existing Americans to do work like construction and trades that currently are dominated by cheap imported labor).
– Tax reform (we need more jobs and our current tax system is stifling job growth).
– Immigration reform… streamlining the process and include a robust temporary work visa program tied to real unemployment and under-employment statistics. This can include a path to citizenship for those existing illegal residents that does not put them at the front of the line in front of any legal immigrant.
[i]…and that I observe a tendency toward less tribalism today than in the past[/i]
LOL. You just confirmed my point.
And while you are thinking this, tell it to Muslims trying to kill anyone not from their tribe.
I think you see what you want to see, not what is real. Hell, even Davis is a filtered tribe where the majority march to the same set of core ideas. Can you imagine any average true blue Davis liberal moving to a red state? Talk about tribal conflict!
Tribalism and nationalism are alive and well. Human nature is human nature and there is no way to change it. Collectivism does not work. Never has, never will. Humans make a mess out of things because they will pursue their self-interests at the expense of most everything else. The American system exploits this tendency in a giant mess of boisterous activity where in the end, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. It is the sausage-making of progress and growth. And no country has ever done it better.
Liberal progressives don’t like the sausage-making so much that they would accept less progress and zero growth if we could transform it into something more like cooperative, eco-friendly, salad-making. This is a fact made evident at a local level by Davis’s own sad economic development story.
[quote] Collectivism does not work. Never has, never will.[/quote]
There are so many collective enterprises functioning very well in so many places in the world, that I marvel once again at the things you say. Co-ops for all kinds of things (including health care) are very common in the Upper MIdwest. You know, where those dang Scandinavians came and refused to adopt our American traditions.
Basically, Frankly, following Fischer’s theory ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_the_United_States#Fischer.27s_theory[/url]), you come across like someone who originated in the UK borderlands, with the culture of the Upland South, and if you see a culture that isn’t like that then you think it isn’t American. That isn’t my culture, nor that of many others in the United States. We are an amalgam of backgrounds, with English and German merging out here in the West with Hispanic and many others. Your focus is too narrow, and, as such, is un-American.
Don I have listed the 13 American traditional values. You don’t accept them. It is your opinions that are un-American.
We have been a nation of immigrants into a melting pot. What we have become is a nation of many different pots. That latter model is un-American and dangerous to our existence.
Collectivism is not competitive-cooperation. You have the two confused.
And Scandinavians are 85% homogenous. They are of the same tribe. They don’t need a model of governance like ours. They are not a melting pot. And, they are fighting tooth and nail to retain their cultural homogeneity in the face of high Muslim immigration pressure.
I don’t think you want to trot out Scandinavia as an immigration model for the US. It won’t help your point in the least.
[quote] You don’t accept them. It is your opinions that are un-American. [/quote]
You are wrong about those being American values. You have misunderstood the essay that you revere so highly.
To tell me my opinions are un-American is incorrect. I do not have anything confused with respect to collectivism or cooperatives. The Scandinavian-Americans I am talking about are as American as you and I.
In all respects on this issue, you are incorrect: you lack historical perspective, you disrespect ALL others who are not like you and your forebears, and — as such — you are behaving in an un-American and narrow-minded manner.
[I]You are wrong about those being American values. You have misunderstood the essay that you revere so highly.[/I]
Nope, you are wrong. You seem to want to disqualify facts based on some test of your belief in some academic standards.
These are absolutely our traditional American values. And your dismissal of them exactly makes my point.
Don, here is a simplified version of something that you might be able to digest.
[img]http://www.cscdc.org/miscfrank/americanvalues.jpg[/img]
[quote]These are absolutely our traditional American values. [/quote]
You’re still talking about the ones by Kohl that you’ve posted several times? No, they aren’t, as we have discussed ad nauseum. For your edification, I’ve reposted my reply from your last attempt at telling us all that this guy’s list was somehow accurate and inviolable.
As I noted before, Americans in general share a few key values. Some of them are things you just circled above. In addition to those, we’ve also adopted useful values from others who have settled here. I’m sure you could add to the list above, things like altruism, community, focus on family, etc. Cooperation is a value that came in to America, as I noted, with Scandinavian settlers. Who are now Americans.
——
[quote]1. PERSONAL CONTROL OVER THE ENVIRONMENT xxx Americans no longer believe in the power of Fate, and they have come to look at people who do as being backward, primitive, or hopelessly naïve. [/quote]
I disagree that this is an accurate description of Americans. If you are deeply religious, you believe in the power of Fate. Many Americans are deeply religious and very fatalistic.
[quote]2. CHANGE xxx In the American mind, change is seen as an indisputably good condition. [/quote]
This thread about immigration clearly disproves this observation.
[quote]3. TIME AND ITS CONTROL xxx Time is, for the average American, of utmost importance. …Schedules, for the American, are meant to be planned and then followed in the smallest detail. [/quote]
I believe this is more important in some urban centers than in other parts of the U.S. Certainly people from New York would probably say it isn’t true of Californians.
[quote]4. EQUALITY/EGALITARIANISM Equality is, for Americans, one of their most cherished values. This concept is so important for Americans that they have even given it a religious basis. They say all people have been “created equal.”
[quote]5. INDIVIDUAL AND PRIVACY xxx Privacy, the ultimate result of individualism is perhaps even more difficult for the foreigner to comprehend. [/quote]
As noted, I agree these are strong American values.
[quote]6. SELF-HELP CONTROL xxx In the United States, a person can take credit only for what he or she has accomplished by himself or herself. Americans get no credit whatsoever for having been born into a rich family. [/quote]
I’m not sure I agree with this description. But it does reflect our egalitarian values.
[quote]7. COMPETITION AND FREE ENTERPRISE xxx Americans believe that competition brings out the best in any individual. [/quote]
Probably most Americans do agree. I don’t.
[quote]xxx Americans, valuing competition, have devised an economic system to go with it—free enterprise. Americans feel strongly that a highly competitive economy will bring out the best in its people…[/quote]
Except that we strongly support a mixed economy, not a free enterprise system.
[quote]8. FUTURE ORIENTATION xxx Valuing the future and the improvements Americans are sure the future will bring means that they devalue that past and are, to a large extent, unconscious of the present. [/quote]
I think this is arguable as a description, but perhaps applies to Americans more than, say, old Europe.
[quote]x If you come from a culture such as those in the traditional Moslem world, where talking about or actively planning the future is felt to be a futile, even sinful, activity, you will have not only philosophical problems with this very American characteristic but religious objections as well. [/quote]
If you are an apocalyptic evangelical Christian, you would presumably also have this problem.
[quote]9. ACTION/WORK ORIENTATION xxx … action—any action—is seen to be superior to inaction. xxx Americans routinely plan and schedule an extremely active day. Any relaxation must be limited in time, pre-planned, and aimed at “recreating” their ability to work harder and more productively once the recreation is over. Americans believe leisure activities should assume a relatively small portion of one’s total life. [/quote]
True, but I don’t see this as necessarily a desirable value. Especially since my income derives from people using their leisure time…
[quote]10. INFORMALITY xxx If you come from a more formal society, you will likely find Americans to be extremely informal, and will probably feel that they are even disrespectful of those in authority. [/quote]
I agree with this description and wholeheartedly embrace it.
[quote]11. DIRECTNESS, OPENNESS AND HONESTY xxx Many other countries have developed subtle, sometimes highly ritualistic, ways of informing other people of unpleasant information. Americans, however, have always preferred the first approach. [/quote]
I think there are significant regional differences in this respect, and don’t consider it something Americans necessarily value. In the West, and mid-Atlantic states, yes.
[quote]12. PRACTICALITY AND EFFICIENCY xxx Americans have a reputation of being an extremely realistic, practical and efficient people. The practical consideration is likely to be given highest priority in making any important decision in the United States. Americans pride themselves in not being very philosophically or theoretically oriented. [/quote]
Yes. Except for that religion thing again.
[quote]13. MATERIALISM/ACQUISITIVENESS xxx Foreigners generally consider Americans much more materialistic than Americans are likely to consider themselves. [/quote]
Certainly accurate as a description. I think most immigrants happily assimilate in this regard.
What Americans value.
Liberty, freedom, democracy, self-determination as a people.
Equality: no caste or class system.
Americans admire individualism and hard work.
Americas favor the right to be left alone (right to privacy).
Americans have generally favored expansionism and overall have supported our role as the dominant power in the world.
Within different communities, centered in different regions, there are other values:
Community: helping others who are less fortunate through community effort.
Conservation: protecting natural resources from exploitation.
Faith and secularism: each very strong in some regions, much less so in others; each with a long history.
Tribal identity: the desire to stay together among ethnic peers, to preserve the old traditions and values, even while appreciating the material goods and freedoms of this country.
There is no consensus (and has never been) about some values:
The role of religion in the public sphere.
The appropriate limits of government.
The regulation of free enterprise.
Obviously, many of these values are in conflict with each other. But it is common to have second- and third-generation conflicts about, for example, retaining ethnic identity while accepting the benefits of freedom and free enterprise. I think that is true in the ethnic groups that conservatives seem to fear most, and they simply don’t see it happening.
wdf1: [i]conservatives are virtuous, liberals are clueless[/i]
Frankly: [i]Never wrote that.[/i]
LOL. Of course not. Allow me to paraphrase how it comes across from pages of your expounding on what you think I am.
for example, something you did say: [i]Liberal progressives don’t like the sausage-making so much that they would accept less progress and zero growth if we could transform it into something more like cooperative, eco-friendly, salad-making.[/i]
I don’t see where that describes me or where I have said that.
You are welcome to think of me as you like, but I don’t personally identify with your descriptions, so I don’t think it contributes much for you to write it out every time. More than anything, I’m a little embarrassed for you because just when you start to propose something intelligent, you go off on your “conservatives are virtuous, liberals are clueless” schpiels that actually distracts from discussing the subject at hand.
I could identify myself in many ways as a Reagan Republican when he was politically active — a “big tent” Republican, opposed the Briggs initiative ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briggs_Initiative[/url]), and willing to compromise. I was unable to vote for him at the time, but I know I would have if I could. I don’t see any sign of the Republicans having a “big tent” philosophy, and I think the lack of a unified view on immigration is emblematic of it. I think Reagan would have pushed for the Senate immigration bill. I think there are more Pat Buchanan Republicans today than Reagan Republicans.
You are a one-dimensional thinker when it comes to politics (where does it fit on a liberal-conservative spectrum). But when it comes to education discussions, you argue for a system that accommodates multi-dimensional characteristics in students. In the switch to political discussions, though you really lose it.
wdf1: [i]…and that I observe a tendency toward less tribalism today than in the past [/i]
Frankly: [i]LOL. You just confirmed my point.
And while you are thinking this, tell it to Muslims trying to kill anyone not from their tribe.[/i]
LOL. You have such a limited view of people and of history? I don’t see Catholics and Protestants trying to kill each other like they were in past centuries. What’s that?
Though we’re vigilant for Muslim terrorists, we’re not leading medieval crusades to conquer Muslim countries in the name of Jesus Christ. The idea of overt military conquest (probably an extreme of tribal behavior) as a viable policy basically ended with WWII. What’s going on there?
And I thought you were arguing that we are in a kind of “post-racial” society in the U.S. where it wasn’t necessary to be identifying racism so much. I think race relations have improved in recent decades, though not necessarily to everyone’s liking. What’s going on there?
One of my daughter’s best friends comes from a Muslim family. We have chatted extensively with them at various times, but I did not ask them, “do you intend to kill non-Muslims?” Was it a mistake for me not to ask?
When I grew up in the South, social pressures and attitudes of the day would not have allowed me to socialize in the same way with such neighbors, if they had existed.
So, Frankly, without the labeling and categorizing fallback that you are in the habit of engaging in, please explain to me what I am seeing. To me it looks like a moderation of tribal behavior over time, but I’m expecting you to disagree, based on the groundwork you’ve laid in previous comments.
Don and wdf1, you are clever arguing against me in absolute terms while rejecting my points based on a test of absolutism. You two are so nuanced in your opinions that you don’t really have an opinion.
Well, I think you do have an opinion, but by staying so nuanced you don’t have to own up to it.
I give Don a list of traditional values that Americans live by, and he cites some obscure, non mainstream, cases as examples to refute them. Yes, of course, these values are not absolute for every American or every situation. But the are the core and they are being diluted from the likes of Don that dismiss them.
[i]You are a one-dimensional thinker when it comes to politics [/I]
LOL. Hmm, well, I have never heard that from anyone that knows me and debates me on politics before. I think you might just not be used to someone having strong positions and the integrity and honesty to state them clearly. Actually, I am often told I am objective to a fault. Looking at the pros and cons of a position and weighing it to make a decisions. My more left-leaning acquaintances don’t like to make decisions quickly. Analysis paralysis is a common malady.
Listen, I know people with left leaning political views like the back of my hand, and although they come in all shapes and sizes, and will differ on some points of politics from each other, the one thing they ALL have in common is a tendency to not want to be held accountable for being wrong or making a mistake. I think it drives them to become hostile when others try to nail them down on positions.
Immigrants are coming here largely for the same reason our immigrant ancestors did: economic opportunity. In some cases, political freedom is a factor. They are coming as families, and staying together as families.
As such, they are already exhibiting a couple of the important American values.
They are assimilating along two to three generations, which is pretty typical. Perhaps a little slower than with some past immigrants. Some are settling in areas almost exclusively of ‘their own kind’ which may well reflect the availability of housing. Just as did many prior ethnic groups, they are retaining language and customs within their own neighborhoods and shops. In major cities across America, you have neighborhoods where multiple languages are spoken, where certain ethnic groups live together, where certain customs and values prevail. Meanwhile, the children there are assimilating.
Yes, we have a special relationship with Mexico and countries to the south, because for several generations now we have derived labor from those countries. They have provided the labor that is crucial to our agricultural and service industries. They have benefited, we have benefited. There have been some abuses of the laborers, and some of them and their families have taken advantage of our social welfare programs. At this point, realistically, it is the labor system we have for certain industries. Undermining it, cutting off the labor supply, has been shown to have disastrous consequences. So we need to normalize it. Hence the support of big ag for these immigration reforms.
Also, realistically, we have families going into second and third generations from this labor relationship. It is just a matter of common decency to allow the children to attend our schools and universities, and if they wish to serve in our military we should welcome them. Hence the DREAM Act, and other simple actions that arise from our better humanitarian impulses.
So we finally have an opportunity to put together a reasonable compromise that addresses some of these issues of an illegal work force of millions of people, providing value by their labor but also having some social and fiscal costs. It isn’t a matter of whether it’s ok for millions of people to come here from those countries, and what impact they’re going to have. They’re here. And deporting them en masse would be impractical, inhumane, and really, really bad for certain sectors of our economy. So we really should move forward and try to deal with the costs while providing a process for accepting these workers as citizens.
Frankly: [i]Collectivism does not work. Never has, never will.[/i]
The Argentine ants ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_ant[/url]) that often invade homes in Davis are an example of the success of collectivist behavior in nature. They don’t recognize separate populations within their species and so don’t tend to attack or compete with others within their species. The linked article actually compares this behavior to that of humans. Seems by that definition, we’ve already achieved a level of collectivism. Welcome to the tribe, bro!
[quote]I give Don a list of traditional values that Americans live by, and he cites some obscure, non mainstream, cases as examples to refute them. [/quote]
As noted, now for the umpteenth time, your list isn’t even accurately descriptive, much less prescriptive, of “American values.” I have listed after yours (01:24) what I consider a more accurate description of American values.
Welcome to the collective:
[img]http://www.cscdc.org/miscfrank/borq.jpg[/img]
Actually, it looks more like this: [url]http://www.organicvalley.coop/newsroom/about-organic-valley/[/url]
I’m pretty sure most of them are Americans.
[img]http://www.organicvalley.coop/uploads/RTEmagicC_ae65ad4df9.jpg.jpg[/img]
Don, that is cooperative-competition. People pursuing the own self-interest to win. They are cooperating to compete and win in the economy. In fact, they cooperate because it gives them competitive economies of scale advantage over other farmers.
That type of thing is absolutely American.
However, social collectivism, like for ants, is not. In fact, it is about as far from American as you can get.
Frankly: [i]Don, that is cooperative-competition. People pursuing the own self-interest to win. They are cooperating to compete and win in the economy. In fact, they cooperate because it gives them competitive economies of scale advantage over other farmers.
That type of thing is absolutely American.
However, social collectivism, like for ants, is not. In fact, it is about as far from American as you can get.[/i]
So Argentine ants are not working in their self-interest?
Frankly: [i] My more left-leaning acquaintances don’t like to make decisions quickly.[/i]
It’s bad to take time to make decisions? and on the other hand virtuous to make decisions quickly?
Frankly
[quote]I know people with left leaning political views like the back of my hand, and although they come in all shapes and sizes, and will differ on some points of politics from each other, the one thing they ALL have in common is a tendency to not want to be held accountable for being wrong or making a mistake. I think it drives them to become hostile when others try to nail them down on positions.[/quote]
I am one person with strongly left leaning political views and you apparently do not know me at all. One of the central necessities for being a doctor in my specialty is the ability to make a decision, own it, defend it and stand by it often very quickly. That is coupled with the need to be able to admit just as quickly when one is wrong if it is demonstrated that another course of action is superior. There is no time in the urgent aspects of my profession for defensive or hostile behaviors since not infrequently someone’s life may depend upon choosing the best course of action and cooperating to make the best choice happen. I believe that your tendency to generalize and believe that you understand the thought processes of “ALL” liberals blinds you to the richness and complexity of options that might be available to you if you were willing to suspend your knee jerk, stereotypical reaction to anyone who does not share your conservative views.
[i]It’s bad to take time to make decisions? and on the other hand virtuous to make decisions quickly?[/i]
The timing of this question was hilarious to me because I just got off a 70 minute phone call with my business partner who is a self-professed New England liberal transplant to So Cal… about a business transaction. After spending a couple weeks on it, I have all the information I need to make a decision. But he has MORE questions and wants to analyze things FURTHER.
One of the things I do to move the needle sometimes… that causes him some anxiety… is to remind him that a decision to delay is still a decision and comes with risk.
That is a fundamental behavior trait I find quite irritating sometimes… delaying a decision… basically causing a lot more work… to achieve some miniscule mitigation of immaterial risk that a mistake will be made.
But of course making decisions quickly without enough information can be reckless.
In general, I see conservatives tending to be more decisive, less risk-averse and it some cases, more reckless. I see liberals tending to being less decisive, more risk-averse and prone to analysis-paralysis.
Of course I am generalizing based on my experience. I know plenty of people that are exceptions to this… or do not exhibit to either extreme.
But, I have often pondered if this general difference in appetite for decision speed is a common trait for a person that would also have more liberal political and social views, or it was the other way around. Or… if different personality types tended to drift ideologically one way or the other.
Frankly, I think most people suck at visualization and trade-off analysis. If they have a defined protocol that is their fallback CYA, even the risk-averse will be happy to follow it to a decisive point. Deadlines too will generally do the trick, because deadline-missing risk will trump mistake-making risk in many cases. I am much more impresses with leaders that can quickly analyze a problem or opportunity and take decisive action. If their decision turns out wrong, then the next question is do they own it and learn from it?
For this reason, I am more apt to be impressed with conservatives rather than liberals in leadership positions. Bush made decisions, and he made mistakes. He never blamed another administration. He took full responsibility for every decision he made. Obama?… well that is why we call him the “blamer in chief”.
[i]One of the central necessities for being a doctor in my specialty is the ability to make a decision, [/i]
Ha! Come on medwoman. You do make decisions within treatment protocols. And you have deadlines that push you (e.g., the patient will die if you don’t do something).
However, lacking a protocol and with time on your hands, the medical profession is guilty of the slowest damn decision process of all.
[i]So Argentine ants are not working in their self-interest?[/i]
Ants don’t have freedom. They are not creative. They serve the collective for the survival of their species.
So, no I would not say that an individual ant is working for his own self-interest. He does not even get a chance to ask himself if this is a job he really wants to do.
Collectivism is that antithesis of individual freedom. Collectivism invokes a brainless mob of sameness. Human nature does not fit into a collectivist model. It is forced there by those that made envious for power and anxious that some would left behind in a system that derives from individual freedom to pursue self-interest.
Note that Argentina seems to be modeling their human systems after their ants… and that is not working for them at all.
[quote]Here is the order of policy that I would need to see to support the type of immigration reform being pushed by policy makers.
– Near absolute border security… with validation from border state authorities.
– Welfare reform (there are people that can and should be working that are not)
– Education reform (We should be training existing Americans to do work like construction and trades that currently are dominated by cheap imported labor).
– Tax reform (we need more jobs and our current tax system is stifling job growth).
– Immigration reform… streamlining the process and include a robust temporary work visa program tied to real unemployment and under-employment statistics. This can include a path to citizenship for those existing illegal residents that does not put them at the front of the line in front of any legal immigrant.[/quote]
In effect, you are saying that
— border state governors should have a veto over immigration reform;
— you basically don’t favor immigration reform.
If, in fact, that is the order in which legislation has to happen, you are saying that as a practical matter you would never support immigration reform.
We’ve already had welfare reform, tax reform will simply not occur anytime soon. “Education reform” isn’t a federal issue, and will never meet your terms as expressed on numerous other threads.
So bottom line: you favor retaining the status quo, because even this compromise legislation is unacceptable to you and nothing else is ever going to meet your standards.
After reading this, clearly Grover Norquist’s conservative credentials are suspect. Maybe he’s a RINO?.”
[quote]Norquist: Immigration Reform Will Pass Because Opponents Are ‘Anti-People’ ([url]http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Politics/grover-norquist-immigration-reform-pass-opponents-anti-people/story?id=19672577[/url])
Norquist on Monday tore into immigration restrictionists on the right who have become louder as the debate has moved from the Senate to the House. He dismissed their argument that higher levels of immigration will depress wages as “anti-people,” countering that bringing in more immigrant workers is an “asset for economic growth.”[/quote]
Don Shor: [i]So bottom line: you favor retaining the status quo, because even this compromise legislation is unacceptable to you and nothing else is ever going to meet your standards.[/i]
And that actually meets a traditional definition of “conservative”. Keep the status quo.
[quote]Immigrants Outpacing the Rest of Us in Small Business Ownership ([url]http://business.time.com/2012/06/15/immigrants-outpacing-the-rest-of-us-in-small-business-ownership/[/url])
Just a couple decades ago, only 12% of small business owners were immigrants. Today, the number is 18% — a disproportion ratio given that immigrants make up just 13% of the U.S. population, according to a new study by the Fiscal Policy Institute. The portion of the U.S. labor force comprised of immigrants has been increasing for years. In 1990, immigrants made up only about 9% of the workforce.[/quote]
[i]So bottom line: you favor retaining the status quo, because even this compromise legislation is unacceptable to you and nothing else is ever going to meet your standards[/i]
Nope. I am consistent here Don. I see these things as all connected to the immigration debate. There is cause and effect.
Here is the bottom line.
[b]We need a clear plan for more jobs and more people working for their own economic self-sufficiency before we agree to any deal with existing illegal immigrants.[/b]
In terms of immigration reform, we owe illegal immigrants nothing. But we absolutely owe ourselves the higher priority of ensuring minimal negative fiscal and social impacts from any reform ideas.
But we need to practically seal the border as a first step because the problems keeps growing.
I support immigration reform, but done in the order that makes sense and that favors American people, and legal residents, first.
wdf1 – Norquist is trumpeting the business argument that they need more cheap labor. I agree with them based on our current large pile of lazy entitled folks that think they don’t have to work. But if we get serious about disability fraud, and put some more welfare to workfare reforms in place, there will be more Americans that will do those jobs. And if we lower taxes, more companies will locate here and hire.
Lastly, we have been through this before and Democrats failed to honor their commitment to Reagan to get him to vote for amnesty. Time for Democrats to take their medicine now for breaking that promise. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
[quote]We need a clear plan for more jobs and more people working for their own economic self-sufficiency before we agree to any deal with existing illegal immigrants. [/quote]
So, meanwhile, send ’em all home?
Why would you send them all home?
No ‘clear plan for more jobs’ is going to happen before immigration reform. Nobody is proposing additional welfare reform, so that won’t happen. Education reform isn’t even a federal issue. You apparently don’t accept 20,000 mpre border patrol agents + DHS certification as sufficient for better border security.
So what do you propose we do about the people who are here without documentation until such time as your other conditions can be met? Since you obviously know your conditions won’t be met now, next year, the year after, or any time really — what should we do? Just keep things as they are, keep interdicting, keep sending people home? Do you favor the DREAM Act?
I seriously do not understand what you, and by extension the non-compromising wing of the Republican Party and the Tea Party base, advocate as a practical approach to immigration reform. No bill is better than the bill that passed the Senate?
Don Shor: [i]I seriously do not understand what you, and by extension the non-compromising wing of the Republican Party and the Tea Party base, advocate as a practical approach to immigration reform. No bill is better than the bill that passed the Senate?[/i]
Am I seeing a characteristic conservative trait of quick decision-making to do nothing?
Frankly: [i]I support immigration reform, but done in the order that makes sense and that favors American people, and legal residents, first.[/i]
So what do think we should do with her? Ship her back? Too un-American?
[img]http://a57.foxnews.com/global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/fn-latino/news/660/371/undocumentedvaledictorian.jpg[/img]
[quote]Arizona State University Valedictorian is an Undocumented Immigrant ([url]http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/05/13/arizona-state-university-valedictorian-undocumented-immigrant/[/url])
…
Angelica Hernández came to Arizona from Mexico in the late 1990s. She excelled in her studies — graduating high school with a 4.5 GPA.
During the graduation ceremony, Hernández gets to sit on stage because she is a distinguished graduate. She’s the ‘outstanding distinguished senior’ in mechanical engineering at ASU — which is what a valedictorian is to other universities.
“To be able to receive that award and knowing the people that I was competing with, it just makes me so excited and so overwhelmed,” she told us.
Most distinguished graduates like Hernández have jobs and internships lined up by now, but not Hernández. She’s undocumented.
“There’s my degree but I can’t use it as much as I want to get a job, as much as I want to help somewhere or do research, I can’t. Its just very unfortunate.”
….[/quote]
“Frankly: I support immigration reform, but done in the order that makes sense and that favors American people, and legal residents, first”
Ok, I’ll bite. Why favor “American people and legal residents first” ? You said previously that one of the traits of Americans is that they do not believe that individuals should be judged by the family into which they are born. If you truly believe in a strict individual meritocracy as you claim to, then why should the arbitrary site on the globe in which you were born matter ? Why not utilize the skills of the best and brightest who want to contribute to our society but happen to have arrived here through no faulty of their own without the proper paperwork ?
I would argue that what makes the most sense is to enable those who have shown the most initiative, determination, and promise first.
Frankly
And on another note, I sincerely hope that if you are ever truly I’ll, and your illness does not fit neatly within a ” treatment protocol” as is frequently the case, your doctor, whether conservative or liberal will be willing to do what we all do on a regular basis. Namely, step outside the box, make a call based on training, experience, and individual judgement, and sometimes intuition, and maybe even save your life.
[i]Am I seeing a characteristic conservative trait of quick decision-making to do nothing?[/i]
If “do nothing” is doing what you want to do, then doing nothing is my decision. See how quick I made it? Read back to my point where were I wrote that a decision to do nothing is a decision. Didn’t liberal Democrats what to do nothing about Iraq even after 11 years of Saddam breaking UN directives after he already proved he would attack and use WMDs?
I laid out my other “decisions”. I would make them instantly as king of the country. Don says they can’t or won’t be done, and so that becomes his excuse for skipping ahead to deal with the emotional tragedy of 11 million or 20 million illegals not having access to enough public assistance… and yes, a small minority of them having legitimate tragic circumstances of illegally coming here, of being brought here illegally, but lacking papers.
So tell me all you bleeding hearts over illegal aliens… can you name another country that would do what you are suggesting and have done in the past with evidence of great financial harm to their country? What country with national debt heading to the stratosphere, existing Americans unable to get jobs, unable to get adequate health care, cities filing bankruptcy, etc. etc. etc… decides that they will add another 11 to 20 million to the public trough?
If we are going to do this, and I said I support it, then the policy/plan needs to ensure that existing legal residents and Americans are taken care of first.
And by the way, the issue is the population of ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. Legal immigrants are fine, and legal immigration is supported as it has been.
This little disingenuous trick to point back to past immigration fears to make an argument of some new conservative case of xenophobia is childish and identifies the trickster as lacking the integrity and the intelligence to debate the issue on its merits.
[i]And on another note, I sincerely hope that if you are ever truly I’ll, and your illness does not fit neatly within a ” treatment protocol” as is frequently the case, your doctor, whether conservative or liberal will be willing to do what we all do on a regular basis.[/i]
meds, for the two years my mother lived after being diagnose with a grade-4 glioblastoma, I both praised and cursed the members of your profession. I praised them for their training and skills and the modern technology that gave us some hope, and I cursed them for their disconnected decision-making process throughout her ordeal. It took every bit of her strong and educated three sons and husband to advocate for the level of care she deserved. Left to the “system” she would have died earlier.
Some doctors are decisive and other are not. But the system is fraught with disconnected decision-making and poor case management when the patient’s condition is challenging and requires services from multiple medical disciplines. Maybe Kaiser is better at this.
[quote]Didn’t liberal Democrats what to do nothing about Iraq even after 11 years of Saddam breaking UN directives after he already proved he would attack and use WMDs?[/quote]
Off topic, but I don’t know which Democrats you’re referring to. Most that I recall preferred tightened sanctions and no-fly zones.
[quote]Don says they can’t or won’t be done, and so that becomes his excuse for skipping ahead to deal with the emotional tragedy of 11 million or 20 million illegals not having access to enough public assistance….
decides that they will add another 11 to 20 million to the public trough?[/quote]
Wow. So ALL “11 to 20 million” are going on public assistance? I wonder, then, who is picking our vegetables?
It isn’t an “emotional tragedy.” It’s a reality. They’re here, working and settling in. And your answer is that our current immigration policy is the best response to that.
Well, I’ve said my piece. I think we have enough border security as it is. Obama has been unprecedented in enforcing it, much to the annoyance of liberals. Yours and Republican insistence on that point doesn’t make sense to me. Doing nothing leaves 11 million with less incentive to engage as fully in society. Not an emotional argument, here. Just fact.
[i]And your answer is that our current immigration policy is the best response to that.[/i]
Last time those that wanted amnesty got amnesty with a promise that the border would be secured.
Democrats do not stick to their commitments. For them it is clear that any means is justified for their pursuit of their desired ends.
The border states are telling use that there is still a large flow of illegals. Frankly, I do not trust the federal government numbers of illegal immigrant flow. I don’t trust the federal government much at all any more… and the IRS and other debacles have made it clear that political bias and partisan corruption drive the agenda and process. I trust the numbers published by the states that are dealing with the lion’s share of the problems from the flood of illegal immigrants.
There is no new tragedy not giving 11 to 20 million illegal immigrants amnesty. We don’t owe them anything. Business as usual is fine until these other issues are dealt with sufficiently.
Maybe this time Democrats will realize that failing to honor their commitments has negative consequences.
Yes Don, those picking vegetables will go on public assistance because their income will be below the line that has been set for justifying public assistance. A lot of these people will become eligible for public assistance. And the fact that they can get public assistance will be an attractant to inspire new illegal immigrants. Hence the need to seal the border.
Frankly
“But the system is fraught with disconnected decision-making and poor case management when the patient’s condition is challenging and requires services from multiple medical disciplines. Maybe Kaiser is better at this.”
I am sorry for the frustration that you and your family encountered in securing care for your mother. You have summed up eloquently my frustrations with the most common approach to health care in our country. Many, many times my posts have included my observation that outside certain self contained systems, such as Kaiser, we do not have a health care delivery system in our country.
Over the past 25 years with Kaiser, I have seen it move from a number of separate clinics and hospitals to a truly integrated system where initial consults are obtained in real time by phone or electronically, where doctors are not financially in competition with each other but are working collaboratively with each other to achieve the best out come possible for each patient as efficiently as possible. It is precisely because we have no financial incentive to bring the patient back for multiple visits ( each generating a new set of copays) and do not need to get randomly designated and non medically relevant pre approval for tests and procedures, that we are able to make decision plans quickly and in an integrated manner with both primary care providers and specialists notified the same day, and often in real time of the patients progress.
It is because I have seen this evolution over time that I am so strongly convinced of the benefits of collaborative rather than a competitive model
For health care delivery. Imagine friom the patients point of view, how superior an experience they have if their problem is addressed directly on their initial visit instead of having to wait 3 weeks for a specialist appointment. Over the past 15 years, we have shortened the length of time for a breast lump evaluation from 3 weeks to 1-3 days. This is done through cooperation, not competition, between individual doctors and departments.
It was done, not in a way designed to maximize profit, but to care for each patient as efficiently as possible. Now wouldn’t it be even better if we were integrated throughout the country so that I could communicate immediately and directly with my patients doctor when she becomes ill on a trip outside “Kaiser country”? We have at our hands the technical ability to do so, but stubbornly choose not to in defensive of a fragmented lack of system which we erroneously cling to the idea of as ” the world’s best”.
So, how in any way does this connect to immigration ? I feel it does. If we truly believe in the benefits of individual endeavor , and not just birth rights, then it should not matter where an individual was born. Those who put in the most effort, the most determination, and the strongest commitment to succeeding not only for themselves but for their families, colleagues, communities will ultimately strengthen us as a country.
Just as I do not see why a patients care should be limited or dictated by the insurance their employer has chosen,
I fail to understand how it makes any rational sense at all for the star student born a few steps farther north over an arbitrary line drawn by military/ political decision making to have a completely different set of opportunities than the child born a few steps further south. Please explain to me how this arbitrary historical line drawing objectively helps us today to strengthen economically, socially, or morally.
[i]a truly integrated system [/i]
Meds. thanks for the thoughtful post (not that your other posts are any less thoughtful).
Just keep in mind that it has been the free enterprise system that has led to the development of Kaiser’s model… a model I would like to see proliferated… and I think it is… but too slowly. Obamacare will likely destroy that progress and set us back.
[i]I fail to understand how it makes any rational sense at all for the star student born a few steps farther north over an arbitrary line drawn by military/ political decision making to have a completely different set of opportunities than the child born a few steps further south.[/I]
Because there are children a few steps further from these children, and more a few steps further, and more a few steps further… etc., etc., etc.
You cannot save the world medwoman. The fact is that people of these other counties lacking the same opportunities can try to understand what it is about our country that has led them to be so attracted to it that they would risk death and break laws to illegally immigrate here… and demand the same from their leaders.
You should also consider the following… and this is the common inconvenient negative consequence of the liberal egalitarian quest to save the world… when you pull people into the fold of American motherly care you effectively damage their incentives to fix their own problems at home.
With the floodgates open the leaders of Mexico get a pressure relief value to temper unrest that might otherwise occur and force them to get their act together. Frankly, there is no reason that Mexico is not more advanced… other than we keep allowing their poor and uneducated citizens to steal into this country.
Egalitarianism tends to result in short term gain for long-term pain. It satiates the impulse to “do something now” even if that “something” ensures a long-term dependence and eliminates potential root-cause solutions.
In this respect I see the acts of American and European liberals being somewhat selfish. They demand action because of their own internal emotional turmoil over a situation. What they are really after is to make themselves feel better about the situation. But in the end they cause long-term damage to the very people they are trying to save.
So, liberalism is a lot like cocaine. Take it to feel better even though it causes damaging dependency.
True conservatism is as compassionate (read Adam Smith), but it values the long-term over the short-term. It values the greater good even as there will be a percentage of tragic circumstances and less than optimal situations. An educated conservative feels no less emotional turmoil over these situations, but they recognize the need to punch through the emotional cognitive rind to get to the center of rational, objective consideration.
For example, the root cause of so much illegal immigration from Mexico is that Mexico’s government, and Mexican society as a whole, is too corrupt. Their leaders and those that fund them are unwilling to open up markets and educate the population to foment robust economic competition from the bottom-up.
I think the Mexican people would be better off with us putting the troops on the American-Mexican border and telling the Mexican government that we will invade unless they police their own border with us to stop the flow.
Frankly
[quote]You should also consider the following… and this is the common inconvenient negative consequence of the liberal egalitarian quest to save the world… when you pull people into the fold of American motherly care you effectively damage their incentives to fix their own problems at home.
[/quote]
I fundamentally disagree with this point of view. While this may be true for some, it is not true for many others. Many people who come to this country do so for the express purpose of improving conditions in their own country as well as improving their own personal situation. Your statement ignores the motivations of those whose plan includes coming here, gaining skills, and then using those skills to improve the situation in their own countries. One example is two women I worked with on a rural medical outreach. Both were born in Mexico. Both had obtained their degrees and were currently working professionally in the United States, and both participated annually in rural outreach programs in Mexico, Central and South America. We also have large numbers of immigrants who work very hard, pay taxes, and send large amounts of money home to their families with the idea of improving their overall situation enough to be able to return home.
I think that you are using a very stereotypical view ( through the words of your own posts) of the immigrant who only wants to come and live off your taxpayer money. I personally think this a huge distortion of the goals of most immigrants, of whom I have known many, through my personal life and my career.
[quote]True conservatism is as compassionate (read Adam Smith), but it values the long-term over the short-term. It values the greater good even as there will be a percentage of tragic circumstances and less than optimal situations[/quote]
I guess my problem with this view, is that like liberalism, which I agree tends to focus on the present, conservatism focuses only on some idealized future, ignoring the real, present pain. I fundamentally disagree with your premise that we “cannot save the world”. I believe that we create the world bit by bit through our individual choices and actions. For me what would be optimal would be to not see the present and the future as competing with one another, but to find the balance between the needs of “now” and the prospects of a better future. If we do not take care of those who are in need now, how can we anticipate having a population that is strong enough, focused enough, healthy enough to build that better future ? For me this is not about having a
“bleeding heart” it is about having the imagination to conceive of a world in which cooperation rather than ruthless competition is the norm. I do not believe that this is against “human nature”. I believe that one of the distinct features of being human is our ability to perceive our own nature and work actively, through our own personal choices as example, and through the values we teach our children to overcome the baser aspects of our “nature”.