Sunday, October 18, 2015

Come One Come All For Free Stuff

Apparently the these far left folks who block moderate commenters are still in business. MPP Immigration  Of course which leads to almost no comments... And simultaneously this discussion occurred on MinnPost Cruz .
"What would Jesus do 1 & 2.  Rafael Cruz: "the future of the United States lies in Christianity and the Bible."  Jesus: "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy."  Ted Cruz: "We should end birthright citizenship."  Jesus: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." 
"Fox News's Megyn Kelly repeatedly pressed Cruz on a question that Trump was asked on the network Monday: If a husband and a wife were undocumented immigrants and had two children who were born in the United States and citizens, would you deport the citizen children? 
"Cruz did not answer the question, but instead launched into an explanation of how he thinks the immigration system should be changed... 'The United States should focus on securing the border.'"  WP Cruz " Bill 
"I think Jesus would have punished the line budgers who jumped in front of the law abiding process following legal immigrants. He definitely would not have rewarded them with gifts. 
Same old questions? The USA brings in ~1,000,000 legal immigrants each year. Many of whom are impoverished with a limited education. There are maybe 4,000,000,000 people in the world that would likely love to live in the USA. 
How many do you want to let immigrate each year? 
How many people do you want to have living in the USA?
Do you want 1.2 Billion like China/India? 
I don't hear the GOP talking about cutting back on legal immigration... Am I missing something here?" G2A
Back to MPP post, personally I think it is the Liberals who want it both ways. They apparently want to open our borders to whoever is willing to risk their life to get here, thus encouraging more people to risk their lives to get here. And they want to force businesses to pay more wages, more benefits, etc. And they want tax payers to provide even more government programs and assistance.

    

59 comments:

jerrye92002 said...

Oh, come now. Must we have another post pointing out how liberals lack the normal reasoning power that would let them see how absolutely fanciful is their belief in what outcomes their policy preferences would produce?

Every time I see something like this, I become more convinced that the people proposing such follies (which I usually label as liberals) start with a "feeling" for how things "ought to be," such as that everyone should be allowed to freely immigrate and live in the US, and NEVER get past that point to consider the inevitable and extreme consequences, and certainly not to some moderate, detailed and sensible compromise that would be the better solution. Am I stereotyping? I don't think so.

John said...

We will see if Bill gives a logical answer or one of the usual. (I.e. You are fact challenged, you are stupid, you are racist, you are uncaring, etc)

Unknown said...

Unauthorized immigrant population stable for half a decade you seem to be wildly exagerating the scope of the problem.

and who is Bill? I think he is right about you being fact challenged (and maybe to a lesser extent stupid and uncaring ;)

John said...

Bill Willie is a commenter at MinnPost. He isn't as bad regarding name calling and insults as some of them.

"Pew Research estimates that, since 2009, there has been an average of about 350,000 new unauthorized immigrants each year."

Do you read the links you post? So you think it is okay that almost as many people as live in Minneapolis come across the border without background checks and budge in line of legal immigrants?

Are you willing to take a shot at the questions I posed?

Just think.. If we get 350,000 / year people who risk their lives for the "illegal in the USA life", how many do you think will risk their lives and those of their children's if citizenship, good jobs, benefits, etc are what awaits them here?

Unknown said...

my link was to show that illegal immigration is not this huge problem

"the number of new unauthorized immigrants is roughly equal to the number who are deported, leave the U.S. on their own, convert to legal status, or (in a small number of cases) die,"

So how much more money would you like to spend trying to secure the border? Is the wall the the GOP frequently talks about realistic?

If you want to know liberal views / policy on immigration maybe you should read the senate immigration bill. It was bipartisan so the policy preferences of the dems were probably compromised somewhat.

John said...

Maybe I will read it when I get a chance.

Immigration Policy
Heritage Bill Concerns

John said...

I am not sure if we need a wall along the whole distance, I am sure we have enough high tech options that could be used to dissuade uninvited guests.

And most importantly we need policy, enforcement and punishments that dissuade people from even trying. Adopting policies, enforcement and rewards that entice them will just draw them to the light like moths.

By the way, you are still not answering any of my simple questions.

Anonymous said...

I think everyone wants to open our borders for different reasons. Conservatives favor an open border policy because it provides cheap labor that they can control. Liberals want open voters because it means hiring more teachers, and means more votes down the road. We don't close our borders because there is a consensus across the political spectrum that we don't want such a policy.

--Hiram

John said...

And yet only one party wants to reward and encourage the violators with citizenship, healthcare, education, etc.

To me it seems most Liberals support this "open border" concept because they like to help people with the money from other people. There really is no direct cost to them that they can see. Especially if the can invite all these folks in and still legislate minimum wages/benefits.

I do agree that some questionable Conservative business owners appreciate the "black market"labor. However I think it is a small part of the Conservative folks. Most of us see the "Black Market" labor pool costing us more in low wages and higher taxes than it gains us. Especially if folks use the low wages and fewer job openings as an excuse to stay on food stamps, medicaid and welfare.

John said...

I am always curious about if we did get these ~11,000,000 "black market" labor folks to leave... And unemployment dropped to 3%... Wages went up somewhat... What excuses would Liberals come up with for continued large welfare spending???

Sean said...

" I don't hear the GOP talking about cutting back on legal immigration... Am I missing something here?"

The leading Republican Presidential candidate has called for scaling back legal immigration, as has Rick Santorum. (So did Scott Walker before he dropped out.) Sen. Jeff Sessions has proposed limits on legal immigration as well.

Anonymous said...

I do agree that some questionable Conservative business owners appreciate the "black market"labor. However I think it is a small part of the Conservative folks.

But they are the ones that have historically mattered.

Our open border policy has always been bipartisan. As more and more immigrants come to this country, proponents of that policy across the political spectrum will get stronger, not weaker. For them, the status quo is better than any so-called "reform".

--Hiram

John said...

Sean,
Trump's plan does seem aggressive however if Liberals truly want to lower unemployment and increase wages in America for the low skilled and low academics American citizens, he may be on the correct track.
VOX Trump Immigration Plan

I am just curious if all the low income folks of questionable tenacity and ambition would jump at those jobs even if they paid twice as much?

John said...

I still have gotten ZERO answers to these simple questions:

How many do you want to let immigrate each year?

How many people do you want to have living in the USA?

Do you want 1.2 Billion like China/India?

Are we okay with 350,000 undocumented aliens with no background checks crossing the border each year?

If we offer easy citizenship and benefits, how many will it climb to?

Sean said...

I don't know, I was just responding to your false assertion that no one in the GOP is talking about curbing legal immigration.

Sean said...

"How many do you want to let immigrate each year? "

Honestly, we should allow as many high-skilled folks in as want to come here. And we should make it easier for them to meet occupational licensing standards.

"Are we okay with 350,000 undocumented aliens with no background checks crossing the border each year?'

Well, net migration has been essentially zero for a few years now. But I would agree we need to do more to secure the border.

John said...

Now I know from past experience you want low cost dental and healthcare professionals to come in and drive down the cost of these services.

Are you really okay with flooding the Teaching, Accounting, Engineering, Lawyer, Baking, Building, etc professions and driving down the wages in those industries?

Pages 25+ are pretty interesting.

"net migration has been essentially zero for a few years now"
correction "net illegal migration has been essentially zero for a few years now"

So are you really ok if we increase our population to 1.2 Billion? As long as they are highly skilled...

What should we do with all these low skilled folk?

Sean said...

"Are you really okay with flooding the Teaching, Accounting, Engineering, Lawyer, Baking, Building, etc professions and driving down the wages in those industries?"

That's the wrong question. Here's the right question: What is the societal basis for protecting some jobs from foreign competition but not others? Or maybe something like: Why have we structured out trade deals to make it easy to eliminate some American jobs but not others?

John said...

Because employee/professional associations and unions fight tooth and nail against it to protect their near monopolies and higher than justified compensation. This is the basis of "collective bargaining", license requirements and other barriers to entry.

Thus we tax payers pay more in taxes and/or insurance premiums to pay the higher costs to these individuals.

Now both Laurie and yourself are avoiding my simple questions.

Unknown said...

which simple questions do you want answered?

my general answer re immigration is I support the senate immigration bill, which I believe increases the number of immigrants (I don't know by how much.) I trust my senators to support a good immigration plan.

I don't think you have answered you own questions. Do you want to reduce immigration?

we can better secure the border with low cost - high tech solutions why hasn't this been done already? I don't think making the border more secure is easy or low cost.

John said...

I am not sure I said "low cost" high tech solutions, probably just less expensive than a wall. And why haven't we done it? As Hiram says, many people do not want to keep these folks out for different reasons.

I am fine with up to 3 million legal immigrants per year if we cut back on illegal immigrants in the country. That would be a 1% growth per year. Please remember that I believe every person in the USA should have a current legal photo ID so we know who is actually here and living amongst us.

Once again for Laurie...

How many do you want to let immigrate each year?

How many people do you want to have living in the USA?

Do you want 1.2 Billion like China/India?

Are we okay with 350,000 undocumented aliens with no background checks crossing the border each year?

If we offer easy citizenship and benefits, how many will it climb to?

Sean said...

"Because employee/professional associations and unions fight tooth and nail against it to protect their near monopolies and higher than justified compensation. This is the basis of "collective bargaining", license requirements and other barriers to entry."

Unions? You're kidding, right? The trade deals have been structured to bust union power in this country.

Employee and professional associations, yes, absolutely.

But again, you don't ask the question of whether it's appropriate to protect some workers and not others. No, I wouldn't prefer to see the professional market flooded with foreign workers. But, if we're going to expose blue-collar jobs to foreign competition, there's no reason to protect white-collar jobs.

John said...

Please provide some proof that we are "protecting white collar" jobs with trade agreements. I think the Accountants, Lawyers, Teachers, Nurses, Doctors, Dentists, etc would say that their requirements are for the good of quality of the profession.

The Public Employee Unions (mostly White collar jobs) have flourished and grown during the past 50 years. Which has cost the tax payers a LOT of money.

The Private Employee Unions have failed because consumers are not willing to pay the extra expense.

Sean said...

"Please provide some proof that we are "protecting white collar" jobs with trade agreements. I think the Accountants, Lawyers, Teachers, Nurses, Doctors, Dentists, etc would say that their requirements are for the good of quality of the profession."

What trade deals do -- they remove tariffs, they limit worker and environmental protections, on and on and on -- is explicitly designed to put the factory worker in Ohio in direct competition with a factory worker in Mexico or China or Thailand.

If we were committed to free trade in white collar jobs, there are things we could do. We could blow away state licensing schemes and establish national standards. A professional could take a common national standardized test and be licensed anywhere in the U.S., instead of dealing with byzantine state-by-state requirements.

Of course, white collar workers think that those often unrelated to the job licensing requirements make sense, just in the way that factory workers often like tariffs.

Sean said...

"Please provide some proof that we are "protecting white collar" jobs with trade agreements."

An additional piece of proof. The WTO offers basic standards for worker conditions, product safety, and consumer safety for manufactured goods and mechanisms that can be used to challenge whether a particular country is engaged in protectionist activity. It does not have similar mechanisms for white-collar occupations.

John said...

So you are upset that people are more concerned about the safety, work conditions, etc of hourly employees...

In the USA, we have non-exempt employees (hourly) who have many rules protecting them from poor employers... And we have us exempt (salary) folks... Meaning we are hopefully capable of taking care of our selves.

I am missing your point.

John said...

Equating Tariffs and "Licensing Reqts" make little or no sense to me.

Though I do agree that standard US licensing standards sounds good. And then if we can rid of seniority based job security and compensation schemes, many costs could drop.

I wonder who will have to pay if the new foreign employees are not as competent as the ones who passed the old process? Let's say... There are an increased number of patient deaths.

Since few engineering / software jobs require a license or have seniority protections, I don't think we would notice a difference.

Sean said...

"I am missing your point."

Ain't that the truth.

I'm not sure how I can make it any more clear. As a conscious political decision, we protect some jobs from foreign competition but not others. We do so in a way that tends to protect corporate and wealthy interests over that of our middle- and lower-classes.

Conservatives would have us believe that it's OK to offshore that union manufacturing job in Michigan because unions are inefficient and cause extra expense. Yet, we're not willing to apply that logic to other sectors. If we reduced physician salaries to Western European average levels, it would save us $40B in health care spending per year, or about $2125 for every man, woman, and child in this country. That's significant, right? Yet we don't talk about how the American Medical Association spent decades and millions of dollars lobbying to ensure Congress placed caps of the number of doctors that could immigrate into the country and how many residency slots were available at our medical schools.

Maybe we should.

Or, alternatively, think about how we've structured these trade deals to purposefully hollow out our middle class and stop doing it.

Sean said...

That's $125 for every man, woman, and child, not $2125.

John said...

Now you do remember that I work with foreign customers and partners at all levels of personnel? There is nothing that I know of in these trade agreements that protect my "white collar" job. Nor is there anything that prevents people from travelling to India for surgery that I know of.

My previous company set up a huge design and drafting center in India to try and stay competitive. No protection here. By the way, they also set one up in Rapid City SD for the same reason.

The reason manufacturing jobs move more easily is because they don't require much knowledge or experience, many man-hours are involved and a non-perishable product can be shipped at very low cost. People like myself define a product through drawings, specifications, processes, tooling, etc and then most capable manufacturers can build it with a little practice.

At which time the customers are happy to a buy low cost high quality product/service, the investors and domestic employees are happy to be profitable and still be in business, and the foreign workers are happy to have jobs.

There is NO conspiracy to move jobs overseas via trade deals. It is just a consequence of Americans wanting the best product/service for the least money and investors wanting a return on their investment.

John said...

As for loosening the licensing requirements, sounds good. Let's start small and where people may not die... Let's get a national license for K-12 Teachers and Lawyers.

Doing the same for Doctors, Dentists, Nurses, Professional Engineers, etc makes sense however somehow we need to determine which requirements are needed for safety... And which are just protectionistic.

Sean said...

"There is NO conspiracy to move jobs overseas via trade deals. It is just a consequence of Americans wanting the best product/service for the least money and investors wanting a return on their investment."

I didn't say it was a "conspiracy". But it is intentional. There's no doubt about that.

"The reason manufacturing jobs move more easily is because they don't require much knowledge or experience, many man-hours are involved and a non-perishable product can be shipped at very low cost. "

And because we've structured trade deals that get rid of tariffs, which also makes it economical.

"As for loosening the licensing requirements, sounds good. "

I didn't say loosen, I said standardize and rationalize.

John said...

No, I don't think it was "intentional" in the way you mean. No one wanted to gut the middle class or send a lot of our jobs overseas. The American citizens just wanted to buy low cost high quality product and earn some return on their investments. These simple goals drove a lot of activity and change.

Now you do understand that tariffs increase the cost of products and services in the USA? And increase the cost of whatever we want to try to export? And that other countries usually respond in kind? PS in Brazil

Of course you want to loosen some of them. You want to get people with a different education and different experience in the job ASAP.

As I said, we can't even resolve the Teacher license in MN. And you want to go after the Doctors and Surgeons...

Sean said...

"No one wanted to gut the middle class or send a lot of our jobs overseas. "

I think it's very clear that many corporations have sought provisions in law and in our trade pacts that facilitate the process of moving jobs overseas. I don't really think that's a controversial point.

"Now you do understand that tariffs increase the cost of products and services in the USA? And increase the cost of whatever we want to try to export? And that other countries usually respond in kind? "

Sure. I'm not advocating for tariffs, merely pointing out that the removal of tariffs has the effect of making it more economical to move jobs offshore.

"Of course you want to loosen some of them. You want to get people with a different education and different experience in the job ASAP."

No, I just want to make it easier for foreign doctors to come to America. It's not that hard, really, to figure out if a foreign medical school's standards are comparable to an American one. We already do it.

"As I said, we can't even resolve the Teacher license in MN. And you want to go after the Doctors and Surgeons..."

That gets to the issue of state-by-state licensing versus a national standard.

John said...

"facilitate the process of moving jobs overseas." Source or example please. Being allowed to claim the costs of shutting down a plant is a typical deductible expense whether the company is moving across town or to China. Not some "special benefit".

This organization compares check lists but apparently does not go into the details. "The NCFMEA does not review or accredit individual foreign medical schools." It looks like it is just a resource for students who want to study abroad...

Again fixing the Teacher issue should be easy. No one dies if they are inadequate... They just get fired.

Sean said...

"Being allowed to claim the costs of shutting down a plant is a typical deductible expense whether the company is moving across town or to China. Not some "special benefit". "

I've cited other examples higher in the thread. But I guess I would dispute the notion that allowing companies to deduct their costs of shutting down a plant to move the activity offshore isn't a "special benefit". What is the benefit to American taxpayers of allowing that to occur?

"This organization compares check lists but apparently does not go into the details. "

It accredits the accreditors. The larger point is we have at least partial mechanisms in place to accomplish this -- it's not that difficult. Besides, based on the number of Americans who die due to preventable medical errors and our rate of infections inside hospitals, it's not like our medical system has a lot to be haughty about.

John said...

What is the benefit of letting citizens buy Subarus or any of the other vehicles on the bottom of this List?

America taxes profits (ie revenues - expenses) and closing a factory is an expense. What you want to do is make companies pay extra taxes if they close American facilities to move Overseas. (ie a dis-incentive to moving)

Now for the big question... Do you really want to bankrupt American companies by forcing them to keep jobs here, while their foreign competitors produce where costs are lower, and the American Consumers buy the less expensive product from those foreign firms?

As I keep saying... It always comes back to the Buyer. If they are unwilling to pay more for the American Made Product to support the higher cost of American workers and regulations, companies must compete or they die. Now if you want to apply a Foreign Made Tax at the time of sale so consumers know the cost of their choices, please feel free.

To pick on Laurie and all of her fellow Prius owners, should we have applied a $5,000 / car tax because of all the American workers that were put out of work and tax dolars lost by her purchase of an almost 0 domestic content choice?

Back to your question... What is the benefit to American taxpayers of allowing that to occur?

John said...

As for the Licensing standards, that linked site seemed really high level. I think the "Devils are in the Details".

And as I said, if we can not even get something as Teacher straightened out... How will we ever straighten out Doctors with all the liability risk involved? I wish you good luck on that.

Sean said...

"Do you really want to bankrupt American companies by forcing them to keep jobs here, while their foreign competitors produce where costs are lower, and the American Consumers buy the less expensive product from those foreign firms?"

No one is forcing them to keep their jobs here. All I am suggesting is that American taxpayers should not be asked to subsidize that activity.

"must compete or they die"

Except for those occupations which we have chosen to protect.

John said...

"subsidize"... We will have to agree to disagree.

Protecting their own jobs/incomes no matter the cost to the tax payers/customers is what unions, boards, bureaucrats, etc are all about...

Why do you think I keep saying this over and over and over...

The frustration I have with your view is that you want to let some extort us, as you villify others who do the same thing. It seems inconsistent.

Sean said...

I merely want to equalize the power of capital and labor. Capital is advantaged under our current laws and regulations.

You, on the other hand, want to make capital even more advantaged than it is today. By limiting the power of individiuals to "extort", you leave that power only in the hands of the wealthy and corporations.

John said...

We the people can...
- refuse to buy high foreign content goods and services
- continue to learn and improve our individual knowledge and skills
- vote to deport every last illegal immigrant so wages, and job opportunities will increase for the low skill low knowledge American citizens. (assuming they have the ambition to take those positions)
- vote to stop paying welfare, Medicaid, etc for those who fail in our free schools, have more children than they can afford and are costing tax payers far more than they are contributing
- vote to stop public employee unions who demand that the tax payers pay more than their services would cost on the open market

It is "the people" who control things, now are they willing to do so? That is the question...

Sean said...

You dramatically overstate the power we have to change things by voting? Why? Because the names that appear on the ballot are (or are controlled by) big money.

The average net worth of our Presidential candidates (excluding Trump's $4.5B) is $13 million, according to Forbes. (Only Sanders, Rubio, and O'Malley are worth less than $1 million.) The median net worth in our country is about $45,000. 158 families have provided half of the spending ($176M) in this Presidential election cycle so far, according to the New York Times.

Even the costs for lower offices have skyrocketed. The Dorholt-Knoblauch race for State House last year had spending just short of $1 million. Minneapolis and St. Paul City Council and School Board races often now require spending nearly $100,000.

When this situation is allowed to happen, you're not getting folks who are representative of the population as a whole. The control you say folks have is largely illusory.

John said...

Please note that most of my recommendations are supported by your typical Republican candidate. And everyone can make the life choices I recommend.

Of course if you want to:
- Buy high foreign content goods and services to save a few bucks, thereby robbing American workers of their jobs and our Government of its revenues.
- Supporting people who want higher wages, but are unwilling or unmotivated to learn and improve their skills. Remember: Libraries and the Internet are free. Now are these folks using them? If so, are they trying learn or are they just playing computer games?
- Encourage more low cost labor to come here, which raises our employment and drives down our wages in lower level jobs.
- Pay people who waste their time in our schools, are lacking ambition or have more kids than they can afford.
- Support the Public employees getting paid more than other workers at the expense of us tax payers.

If you believe in the above, you will need to find a Liberal Democrat to vote for. One who supports these "shoot ourself in the foot" actions by paying for them with tax dollars and legislated minimum wages.

John said...

And yes... Most highly capable highly educated people who are 35+ are worth quite a bit. Who would you prefer to put in office?

By the way, on the good side... It seems both sides have big donors at the ready.

Sean said...

"By the way, on the good side... It seems both sides have big donors at the ready. "

No, that's not "good" at all.

Sean said...

"Please note that most of my recommendations are supported by your typical Republican candidate."

In your mind, perhaps.

For instance: "refuse to buy high foreign content goods and services"

Ben Carson drives a Mercedes CL (Kogod Index: 40)
Donald Trump owns a Mercedes S-Class (Kogod Index: 1)
Jeb Bush's wife drives a Mini Cooper S (Kogod Index: 3.5)
Rand Paul drives a Mazda 3 (Kogod Index: 6)

Marco Rubio drives a Ford F-150, so good for him (Kogod index: 82.5).

Sean said...

or:

"vote to deport every last illegal immigrant so wages, and job opportunities will increase for the low skill low knowledge American citizens. (assuming they have the ambition to take those positions)"

When President Obama sought funding from the Republican Congress last year to speed up the return process for the minors coming across the border, House Republicans couldn't pass a bill to do so. Nor did they pass any bill making it easier for the U.S. to deport these children. Actions speak louder than words.

Need I go on? Your idealized version of "typical Republicans" bear no resemblance to ACTUAL Republicans.

Sean said...

"vote to deport every last illegal immigrant"

Not funded in any way in any of the four Paul Ryan budgets approved by the House, not has any current GOP candidate presented a plan on how to accomplish this.

John said...

I meant "republicans support the items that require legislation"...

They are Conservatives who believe in unfettered free trade... Of course they will buy what they think is the best value for themselves.

It is the Liberals who complain when companies choose the best value... Then turn around and personally send their own money overseas to purchase the best value.

Sean said...

"They are Conservatives who believe in unfettered free trade"

But, as we've established in the other thread, they're not for "unfettered free trade" at all. They're for free trade that puts some jobs at risk, but not others.

John said...

As for extra funding for processing... It sounds like that is a more complicated topic. WT Money

John said...

Sean,
The Democrats also support the Unions, Professional Boards, State Departments of Licensure, etc. I can guarantee you that the GOP will challenge these entities before the Democrats will. Though they would do it by having the individual States deal with it.

John said...

How can we fix this in MN? That may be a start.

Sean said...

Both parties support occupational licensing. Even nationally this is true. By far the state that issues the most occupational licenses is Louisiana. Arizona is #2. Of the top 21 states in licensing, 11 are blue states, 10 are red states.

In the Minnesota State House last session, there were 10(!) bills proposing new occupational licenses. 7 of those bills were authored by Republicans.

John said...

A bit dated but interesting

jerrye92002 said...

"We the people can...
- refuse to buy high foreign content goods and services
- continue to learn and improve our individual knowledge and skills
- vote to deport every last illegal immigrant so wages, and job opportunities will increase for the low skill low knowledge American citizens. (assuming they have the ambition to take those positions)
- vote to stop paying welfare, Medicaid, etc for those who fail in our free schools, have more children than they can afford and are costing tax payers far more than they are contributing
- vote to stop public employee unions who demand that the tax payers pay more than their services would cost on the open market..."

I don't believe that is correct, or certainly not realistic.
-- The first is an individual economic decision, based on all that the unions and government have done to disadvantage domestic enterprises.
-- The second is made necessary and at the same time difficult because of our failed government school monopoly.
-- The third is unreasonable and you know it. Fortunately it isn't necessary to either "round up" nor to actively deport these folks. The Social Security Administration knows where the overwhelming majority of them are; we could order something like universal e-Verify tomorrow and most of them would self-deport if their jobs were gone (or we could allow them to apply for guest worker status, maybe). It's already happened here in Minnesota on a small scale.
-- You're still blaming the victim. And I still believe government has created both a "welfare trap" and an "attractive nuisance" with welfare spending, making it easy for people to fall into, and difficult for them to get out. Most of us don't have a quibble with a "temporary helping hand," though some of us would rather do it ourselves rather than let government screw it up. It's the long term and inter-generational dependence we object to. 1997 welfare reform was working, but government refused to follow through with it. NOT the voters fault.
-- The problem with the last one is that the unions get to vote also, and to contribute to campaigns for people that WANT to spend more money on public employees. The average voter gets a) persuaded by the union campaign spending and b) outvoted by the union workers, voting themselves a raise.

There are solutions, but it's going to take a true revolt at the ballot box-- say by electing Trump and 60 Republicans to the Senate-- to make it happen. Then I think 5 simple initiatives would solve the problem.

John said...

Well it seems that the Left and Right agree on one thing.

"NOT the voters fault."

To which I say as usual... We live in very free republic.

Of course it is "the voters", "the home buyers", "the consumers", "the families", etc fault. We are free to choose how we vote, we choose our mortgage / home, we choose the products and services we buy, we choose our values, we choose our parenting level, etc.

Now there are some exceptions: people with disease, disability, mental illness, etc.

Remember

jerrye92002 said...

OK, in the "buck stops here" sense, it is the voters that elect the politicians, but I think you need to go Abe Lincoln one better. He said "It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time;
but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time."

Unfortunately, in politics, it is only necessary to fool 51% of the people once every two years. Those who claim there isn't a dime's worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats are provably wrong, but it nonetheless seems like only the Democrat agenda ever advances.