Where's The Savings?
Hello again readers. I hope everyone is doing well.
Today's post concerns the debate on illegal immigration currently going on in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The title of the post is a play on an old telephone commercial tagline.
As you may or may not know, there is currently a new immigration bill before both the House and Senate. The House version of the bill would make being in the US as an illegal immigrant a felony, would impose stiff penalties on companies who hire illegal immigrants, and would fence 1/3rd of the US-Mexican border. The Senate version is a little softer, decreasing the penalties for being in this country illegally (vs the House vers.), offering a way for illegals to become US citizens, and, essentially, creating a "guest worker" program. It also contains the provision for fencing the border.
The House version of the bill was passed ostensibly to aid the government in addressing the drain on limited social welfare resources. It is said by some House version proponents that, eventhough a great number of illegals work and pay their taxes, the illegals are a massive drain on social programs such as Medicaid. Ok, fine, if that is the case, then why not just send every illegal immigrant you catch back to his or her country of origin? Why make it a felony to be in the US illegally? Is it that much cheaper to take a productive (meaning employed and taxpaying) illegal off the streets and house him in a federal penitentiary? If these people are an economic drain by utilizing programs such as Medicaid while working, won't they be a greater economic drain if they are locked up and not working?
The penalties for hiring illegal immigrants are a bit unrealistic also. Right now, the going price for a head of lettuce in my area is $1-$2 depending upon the store. If these penalties are enforced, the illegals ejected or imprisoned, and the agriculture industry forced to hire American workers, the low prices on produce that we have come to expect will be a thing of the past. Like most industries, the agriculture industry will be forced to pass along the increased production costs to the consumer. Do you really want to pay $4-$5 a head for lettuce? And it won't just affect supermarket prices, this will have a ripple effect that will spread to other industries such as fast food and the restaurant industries. If the aim of this provision of the House bill is to cause the economy to come to a grinding halt, then I suppose they have made a good start. I mean it is bad enough that rising energy prices have cause food prices to increase, do we need another government action to squeeze the already limited resources of the average American even harder?
Also, do we really need another bill to address the problem of illegal immigration? What I mean is that if the immigration was illegal to begin with, then why do we need another government action to address the issue. What are they going to do, make it more illegal? I wasn't aware that something that was outside the law in the first place could be made to be even further outside of it. I guess I was wrong. Then again, maybe I was right. I was always taught that if something was illegal, it was illegal period, not a little illegal or a lot illegal. I was taught that the law didn't recognize varying degrees of illegality, that if you were charged with a felony it was a felony, not a small, medium, or large felony. In light of that, how can illegal immigration be made anymore illegal? This is the House saying, "We don't have a clue how to fix the problem." Folks, this bill (the House vers.) is nothing more than a smoke and mirrors solution to the problem. The problem with the bill is that, while it is smoke and mirrors, it will affect and penalize one large key group...the average American! It will penalize the average person by raising food prices, thus shrinking the average person's ever diminishing resources even further. And it will penalize the average person by shrinking the available tax base and increasing government expeditures (a brilliant maneuver in this era of record deficits).
With this bill, once again the government has proven that it doesn't care a bit about the effects of legislation upon the average person. So long as you continue to vote for the person they tell you to vote for, they (legislators) could care less about you and your concerns. Is this (illegal immigration) a real problem? No, it is nothing more than a bunch of Representatives and Senators wanting to appear to be doing something (in an election year) about a problem as real as "Harvey" the giant rabbit in the old Jimmy Stewart movie. Gee guys, why not try something novel, like solving real problems. You know, the kind of problems that real Americans struggle with everyday. Things like the rising cost of energy, or the rising cost of education, or the erosion of rights brought on by poorly crafted legislation. What about these things? Or are you, our Representatives and Senators, finally conceding that you don't have a clue about how to fix the REAL problems that affect this country? I guess it was probably wrong of me to expect so much out of our elected officials, you know, things like simple competency and the like. Find a solution to a real problem? Hell, these guys couldn't find their asses with both hands and a flashlight!
I am Chuck, and this has been my rant.
Today's post concerns the debate on illegal immigration currently going on in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The title of the post is a play on an old telephone commercial tagline.
As you may or may not know, there is currently a new immigration bill before both the House and Senate. The House version of the bill would make being in the US as an illegal immigrant a felony, would impose stiff penalties on companies who hire illegal immigrants, and would fence 1/3rd of the US-Mexican border. The Senate version is a little softer, decreasing the penalties for being in this country illegally (vs the House vers.), offering a way for illegals to become US citizens, and, essentially, creating a "guest worker" program. It also contains the provision for fencing the border.
The House version of the bill was passed ostensibly to aid the government in addressing the drain on limited social welfare resources. It is said by some House version proponents that, eventhough a great number of illegals work and pay their taxes, the illegals are a massive drain on social programs such as Medicaid. Ok, fine, if that is the case, then why not just send every illegal immigrant you catch back to his or her country of origin? Why make it a felony to be in the US illegally? Is it that much cheaper to take a productive (meaning employed and taxpaying) illegal off the streets and house him in a federal penitentiary? If these people are an economic drain by utilizing programs such as Medicaid while working, won't they be a greater economic drain if they are locked up and not working?
The penalties for hiring illegal immigrants are a bit unrealistic also. Right now, the going price for a head of lettuce in my area is $1-$2 depending upon the store. If these penalties are enforced, the illegals ejected or imprisoned, and the agriculture industry forced to hire American workers, the low prices on produce that we have come to expect will be a thing of the past. Like most industries, the agriculture industry will be forced to pass along the increased production costs to the consumer. Do you really want to pay $4-$5 a head for lettuce? And it won't just affect supermarket prices, this will have a ripple effect that will spread to other industries such as fast food and the restaurant industries. If the aim of this provision of the House bill is to cause the economy to come to a grinding halt, then I suppose they have made a good start. I mean it is bad enough that rising energy prices have cause food prices to increase, do we need another government action to squeeze the already limited resources of the average American even harder?
Also, do we really need another bill to address the problem of illegal immigration? What I mean is that if the immigration was illegal to begin with, then why do we need another government action to address the issue. What are they going to do, make it more illegal? I wasn't aware that something that was outside the law in the first place could be made to be even further outside of it. I guess I was wrong. Then again, maybe I was right. I was always taught that if something was illegal, it was illegal period, not a little illegal or a lot illegal. I was taught that the law didn't recognize varying degrees of illegality, that if you were charged with a felony it was a felony, not a small, medium, or large felony. In light of that, how can illegal immigration be made anymore illegal? This is the House saying, "We don't have a clue how to fix the problem." Folks, this bill (the House vers.) is nothing more than a smoke and mirrors solution to the problem. The problem with the bill is that, while it is smoke and mirrors, it will affect and penalize one large key group...the average American! It will penalize the average person by raising food prices, thus shrinking the average person's ever diminishing resources even further. And it will penalize the average person by shrinking the available tax base and increasing government expeditures (a brilliant maneuver in this era of record deficits).
With this bill, once again the government has proven that it doesn't care a bit about the effects of legislation upon the average person. So long as you continue to vote for the person they tell you to vote for, they (legislators) could care less about you and your concerns. Is this (illegal immigration) a real problem? No, it is nothing more than a bunch of Representatives and Senators wanting to appear to be doing something (in an election year) about a problem as real as "Harvey" the giant rabbit in the old Jimmy Stewart movie. Gee guys, why not try something novel, like solving real problems. You know, the kind of problems that real Americans struggle with everyday. Things like the rising cost of energy, or the rising cost of education, or the erosion of rights brought on by poorly crafted legislation. What about these things? Or are you, our Representatives and Senators, finally conceding that you don't have a clue about how to fix the REAL problems that affect this country? I guess it was probably wrong of me to expect so much out of our elected officials, you know, things like simple competency and the like. Find a solution to a real problem? Hell, these guys couldn't find their asses with both hands and a flashlight!
I am Chuck, and this has been my rant.
posted by Chuck | 01:40
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