George Will: Social Conservatives Ignore Facts on Immigration

T

Timshel

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Chuck Schumer has to school these morons on free market economics and the GOP wants us to believe they are the party of limited government. lol

http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/04/14/1863131/will-sessions-economics-immigration/

Minutes after Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) emphasized the need for bipartisan support on a carefully negotiated immigration reform deal that could be announced this week, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) revived the tired argument that bringing undocumented workers out of the shadows is bad for American workers. “It’s logical that if you bring in a massive supply of low-wage workers, you’re going to pull the workers down,” Sessions said Sunday morning on This Week With George Stephanopoulos.

But his so-called logic is not supported by the research — a point emphasized by conservative columnist George Will in urging Sessions to focus on “the facts”:


WILL: Every conservative sympathizes with what Jeff Sessions was saying about not rewarding lawbreaking. However, conservatism begins with facing facts. And the facts are 11 million people are here illegally. Two-thirds have been a decade or more. 30%, 15 years or more. They’re woven into our society. They’re not leaving. And the American people would not tolerate the police measures necessary to extract them from our community. Therefore, the great consensus has to be on the details of a path to citizenship. The most important thing Rubio said in your interview is, even if the system weren’t broken, if we had no illegal immigrants, we’d need to do something about this. We need the workers. As the baby-boomers retire, and as the birthrate declines, we need something to replenish the workforce to sustain the welfare state.​


In an exchange with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sessions also asked whether Schumer would continue to support immigration reform if “this legislation is established by reputable economists, as pulling down the wages of suffering American workers.” “That’s not going to happen, Jeff,” Schumer retorted, citing recent analysis by the conservative CATO Institute. And that’s just one of numerous economic studies to find that the economic benefits to immigration reform far outweigh any harm.

As economists have explained, immigration reform not only stops under-the-table exploitation of workers from driving wages down; it also fills gaps in the economy by creating a labor force for jobs that are complementary to low-wage jobs typically held by native worker. “Contrary to common fears, immigrants are not frequently in direct competition with native-born American workers, in part because they tend to have different skill sets,” a Center for American Progress analysis of economists’ research explains. While studies by restrictionist groups like the Center for Immigration Studies have suggested immigration reform would harm the economy, they fail to account for the fact that 11 million undocumented workers are already in the United States, which is why even Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform has rejected this conclusion.
 
Sessions worries that immigration reform might improve the lives of undocumented workers. Wow, what an asshole!

He illustrates a point that I have made that conservatives wish to use the government to create economic disadvantages to certain classes and are not at all advocates of free markets.

http://thinkprogress.org/immigratio...-immigrants-to-improve-their-quality-of-life/

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Sessions warned that the nation’s undocumented immigrants would “be able to immediately apply for much better jobs than they currently have.” “Maybe they were working at a restaurant part time. Now they’re going to be truck drivers, heavy-equipment operators competing at the factories and plants and we’ve got an unemployment rate that’s very high,” he said.

Millions of Americans are still looking for work, but there is little economic evidence to support Sessions’ concerns. Research shows that immigrants and native-born workers have different levels education, occupation, and skill sets, compete in different job markets and are actually more “likely to compete against offshoring than against each other.” Economists argue that legalization leads to better jobs and higher earning power, significantly increasing tax revenue, boosting consumer spending, and supporting 750,000 to 900,000 additional jobs. Studies conducted in the aftermath of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act also concluded that legal status raises the “wage floor” for the economy and increases take-home pay for immigrants and native workers alike.
 
String, why so many complaints about H1B visas and foreigner engineers taking tech jobs away from Americans at lower pay?
 
cawacko said:
String, why so many complaints about H1B visas and foreigner engineers taking tech jobs away from Americans at lower pay?
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Complaints from who? That's not relevant to this bill or at least not to the portions discussed. H1B's allow companies to import residents with unequal rights to fill jobs. This is about bringing already present residents out of the ambiguous legal status to fill jobs. Equal rights before the law is a cornerstone of free market economics and beneficial to all, excepting those that might exploit labor.
 
Sir Digby Chicken Caesar said:
Complaints from who? That's not relevant to this bill or at least not to the portions discussed. H1B's allow companies to import residents with unequal rights to fill jobs. This is about bringing already present residents out of the ambiguous legal status to fill jobs. Equal rights before the law is a cornerstone of free market economics and beneficial to all, excepting those that might exploit labor.
Click to expand...

Many of the people here illegally in this country overstayed their work visas or green cards. They are not all people who illegally crossed the border. These people who have overstayed their visas will gain citizenship just like a low income uneducated immigrant would if immigration reform as being discussed is passed. In the Bay Area at least liberal groups have complained that these foreign engineers are taking jobs from Americans by working for less money. So is that exploitation? In a free market companies will pay what the market bares...
 
cawacko said:
Many of the people here illegally in this country overstayed their work visas or green cards. They are not all people who illegally crossed the border. These people who have overstayed their visas will gain citizenship just like a low income uneducated immigrant would if immigration reform as being discussed is passed. In the Bay Area at least liberal groups have complained that these foreign engineers are taking jobs from Americans by working for less money. So is that exploitation? In a free market companies will pay what the market bares...
Click to expand...

You are still distorting/confusing the issue. If they gain citizenship then they will compete on equal footing with natives.

H1b's allow employers to bring in employees that are NOT equal in their power to bargain for wages. That is why employers are able to pay them so much less.
 
Sir Digby Chicken Caesar said:
As economists have explained, immigration reform not only stops under-the-table exploitation of workers from driving wages down;
Click to expand...


this sounds like bullshit. how often does this happen on any wide scale? Pretty sure doing this is illegal. Do businesses risk doing stuff illegal to the extent that it's a national epidemic? I think not.


it also fills gaps in the economy by creating a labor force for jobs that are complementary to low-wage jobs typically held by native worker. “Contrary to common fears, immigrants are not frequently in direct competition with native-born American workers, in part because they tend to have different skill sets,”
Click to expand...


cool beans but a lot of people don't oppose illegal immigration because of job reasons. Some people believe in the sovereignty of our nation and borders and our laws and resent that the first thing these people do when they come to our country is pretty much give us the middle finger.
 
When the unemployment rate is this high it is contrary to America's best interests to let more immigrants in.

We should be booting them out by the hundreds of thousands every year, not inviting them in.
 
if someone wants to work and someone wants to hire them they should get a green card.....companies that bring foreign nationals in to work should be required to pay a living wage and full health insurance so that the employee will not require public support, and pay a surcharge to the government to finance the immigration system.....

and, any person who's been legally in this country for the requisite number of years should be able to apply for citizenship, but none of the years when they were here illegally should count towards that requisite number of years......

problem solved.....
 
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