Chris Dodd & Bill Richardson: Health Care for Illegal Aliens

A good piece of legislation if you are the Mexican Govt . . . Good grief.

You are also wrong to pin the failure of the legislation on the conservative base when there were many, many Democrats against it.

 

I just drove cross country.


I would say more than half the people I saw in the wet were mexican.

I heard spanish more than english.


I am lucky I like mexicans. I really don't mind being around them in my country or theirs.

However, there is absolutely no doubt we have been invaded.

I really think there needs to be a true national debate on the reall issue.


The bottom line is this. Do we wish to be Mexico North or not. In effect I am saying the real issue is - does America wish to remain a country which sort of self identifies as a culture is of white Europeans or not.


All these other issues are smoke screens.

Mexicans will get health care and they will get benefits because we have democrats.

If the country does not come out and vote on the real issue - our politicians will be empowered to keep being disingenuous.

I would be happy to go along with the majority vote either way. I just hate the bullshit and the inefficient use of our resources. we have not made tough decisions. Lets make the tough decisions and then structure our society properly.

 

You just undermined the argument for letting in increased numbers of guest workers. Soft-hearted americans will join with power-at-any-cost democrats to immediately start trying to get them citizenship. As for the invading army of illegals already here, a basic principle of our law is you aren't allowed to get an advantage by violating the law. They jumped the line. If citizenship is so important to them, let them return home and get in line with everyone else. The vast majority really don't care about citizenship anyway, except to get more benefits. They regard themselves as mexicans, and that is where their loyalty lies

 

well, at least you're framing the question honestly

here's my view - we spend about 400 bilion a year for 'defense'

more than any other country on earth - almost as much as the rest of the world combined

what do countries 'defend' against?

well, for most of human history, the top of the list has been 'against invasion'

no, i dont want to be 'mexico north'. mexico is a sh-thole society, mostly poor, with ultra rich at the top. Richest man in the world is now a mexican, carlos slim

'cheap labor' isnt cheap at all. it uses far more in social services and infrastructure than it pays in taxes

but it is desired by those who use it, because the profit is privatized and the cost is socialized. wealth isnt created, it is destroyed and transferred. it is a subsidy from the middle class to our wealthy class, mexico's poor and mexico's rich (because they just deport, rather than helping their poor)

for those who say we 'need this cheap labor' it is a complete economic falacy, because the total cost of the labor exceeds the benefit

it also dilutes the presence of the middle class by importing more underclass. it is as likely the middle class people will join the underclass as it is the underclass will join the middle. most likely, the 2 will be 'harmonized'

and this doesn't even begin to address the issue of natural resources - what happens when water is no longer abundant?

we're probably closer to that in the west than most people realize

 

Wow, that is so right. Illegal labor is a cross subsidy. American workers pay, rich people benefit.

The economic model our immigration policy creates is one that subsidizes low value-added service jobs. That is the exact opposite of what the asians do. They emphasize high value-added emerging industries. The american middle class is caught in between. They lose good jobs to lower cost off shore competition, then see their own neighborhoods invaded by illegals, which drives up local government costs and drives down home values. No wonder they are mad.

 

Actually I agree with pretty much everything you're saying here. I think the best outcome is to encourage ordinary immigration, i.e. people who want to become American citizens. I don't have any problem with anti-illegal-immigration policies as long as they provide an alternative. I also prefer legal immigration to guest workers. Guest workers tend to be culturally ostracized which weakens the social fabric -- e.g. Turks in Germany.

Where I disagree with so many conservatives and so many people posting here is that I think immigration -- preferably legal -- is crucial to the economic future of this country, as well as to its society and culture. The idea that the USA is now full and we should shut the door is ridiculous, particularly in light of demographic trends which are reducing our native-born labor force far below the potential labor market.

Martin

 

You're ignoring consumer surplus. This is commonly overlooked by people who do not understand economics.

Lower wages create value for employers, but lower prices create value for consumers. Competition tends to eliminate the employer surplus but does not eliminate the consumer surplus. The middle class reaps enormous benefits from the cheap labor of Mexicans, both directly and indirectly.

If we had an unemployment problem, maybe I would agree with you guys. But, if we had an unemployment problem we wouldn't have an illegal immigration problem (at least, not nearly as bad). Supply follows demand.

If we didn't have immigrants -- legal or otherwise -- America's global competitiveness would be even worse than it is today. The woes of the middle class that people like to blame on Mexicans are really the fault of globalization in general. Keeping the Mexicans out won't make the Chinese go away.

Martin

 

you're the one who doesnt understand economics

if a process has more input cost then value of output, it is wealth destruction, no iffs ands or buts

the process is desired by the employer, because the costs of the marignal increase (an immigrant) is paid by the taxpayer, ie a subsidy

 

what's to say we won't have an unemployment problem tomorrow? Have you ever been through a recession?

Weird thing happen the other week, there is a Chipolte down the block that for the past few years has been staffed mostly by part-time college students, a month ago they were all replaced with full-time Mexicans, undoubtedly, illegal ones at that. Are these the jobs Americans won't do? Are these the enormous benefits you refer to?

I'm in favor of guest worker programs on the condition that they maintain jobs which are within certain industries and they leave, and don't expect me to fund their retirement.




Heather Mac Donald
The Republicans’ Hispanic Delusion
Amnesty is not just wrong in principle, it’s bad politics.
6 June 2007
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-06-06hm.html

George Bush’s political strategists have long promoted amnesty for illegal aliens as a device for increasing the Republican vote among Hispanics. They also warn that denying rights to illegal aliens will hurt the GOP. A Hispanic backlash in California after Proposition 187 (the 1994 voter initiative that denied illegal aliens many publicly funded services) turned the state from red to blue, they claim; a similar rout awaits the party if it does not embrace liberal immigration policies.

There is scant evidence for either of these ideas. The 1986 amnesty signed by President Reagan did not trigger a Latino surge into the Republican Party. And California’s Hispanics leaned as strongly Democratic before Prop. 187 as after it. Hispanic voting patterns in California have held steady since 1988—they vote approximately two-to-one for Democratic presidential candidates. California’s shift from red to blue would have happened with or without Prop. 187, as defense-industry whites left the state, replaced by liberal high-tech professionals, and as the Hispanic portion of the electorate tripled from 7 percent to 21 percent.

“But Hispanics are Republicans waiting to emerge,” counter the Bush strategists. Socially conservative on homosexuality and abortion, Hispanics just need to be invited into the party by an amnesty and not scared off by immigration enforcement. This “social values” argument has been around since the early 1980s, and it’s still awaiting confirmation. The majority of Hispanics vote their perceived economic interests, rather than their social values (evangelical Hispanics may be an exception to this rule). Blacks are equally conservative on gay rights and other favorite liberal crusades, and that doesn’t affect their allegiance to the Democratic party.

Even Republican Hispanics are not particularly conservative on economic issues. A 2002 poll by the Pew and Kaiser foundations found that 52 percent of registered Latino Republicans supported a higher-taxing, larger state sector, a higher percentage for big government than one finds among white Democrats, reports Steve Sailer. As for the majority of Latinos—poor and poorly-educated—the more government services, the better. Mexican consulates across the country are busily signing up illegal Mexicans for all the free government-funded health care that the consulates can find—that would be American- not Mexican-funded health care, mind you. “We have the right to health services,” an illegal Mexican in Santa Clarita, California, told the Los Angeles Times.

This attitude of entitlement—not only among illegal aliens but also among legal Hispanic immigrants and their children—extends to the full array of welfare programs. In fact, welfare use actually increases between the second and third generation of Mexican-Americans—to 31 percent of all third-generation Mexican-American households.

The rising Hispanic population also means stronger unions. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is a harbinger of rising Latino political clout. A former union organizer for the Service Employees International Union and United Teachers Los Angeles, his ascent through California state politics was made possible by union funding and organizing. Los Angeles passed two “living wage” ordinances last year, a favorite union cause. California’s public employee unions have successfully blocked Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s efforts to privatize some government infrastructure projects.

“Democrats—we’re not in the business of contracting out state services,” said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, a Los Angeles Democrat, according to the Los Angeles Times. “It doesn’t fit well with our political diet.”

The rapidly growing Hispanic population “helped decimate the California GOP,” report John Judis and Ruy Teixeira. There is little reason to think that the outcome will be much different in other states. Republicans should craft their immigration policy based on principle, not on politics. But if they insist on deciding the future direction of American sovereignty based on political expediency, they should at least get their politics right.

 

"I'm in favor of guest worker programs on the condition that they maintain jobs which are within certain industries and they leave"

show me a guest worker program implemented anywhere, where they leave