United States Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) said, “We could create 10 million jobs by merely enforcing our immigration laws.” "When my colleagues get a letter from a constituent who has been displaced by foreign workers, they should write back to them and say, 'It is the policy of this government to displace you, to move you into a lower economic income category, because we believe in cheap labor and we believe the politics of open borders helps our party.'"
Yes, we are seeing the mad result of “corporate citizenship” overrunning our elected leaders’ sense of national stewardship as their foundational governing principle. The national multi-generational entrustment that had been the greatest source of confidence for the future of all past American generations is being lost. The financial strength of our economy was inherited from the dedicated efforts of previous generations. Our nation of laws and protections was inherited due to the sacrifices of many men and women from prior generations. The security and safety afforded us in a troubled and dangerous world was gained from the ultimate sacrifices of many prior generations. Yet today we find our nation and citizens being stripped of all of this generational entrustment with the full acquiescence of the elected leaders who are the supposed defenders of America’s national entrustment.
The reflections that the boys of this age are to be the men of the next; that they should be prepared to receive the holy charge which we are cherishing to deliver over to them; that in establishing an institution of wisdom for them, we secure it to all our future generations; that in fulfilling this duty, we bring home to our own bosoms the sweet consolation of seeing our sons rising under a luminous tuition, to destinies of high promise; these are considerations which will occur to all." -- Thomas Jefferson to James Breckinridge, 1821. ME 15:314
Business Week in a 2004 report on free trade and the trading away of American jobs, details some disturbing statistics. Business Week reported that by 2008 an estimated 1.2 million American jobs would be lost to offshore outsourcing, and 3.4 million American jobs will be lost by 2015. These jobs will be in areas traditionally coveted by the American middle class in technology, legal, architecture, business, and life science professions.
In addition to jobs lost to offshore outsourcing, non-immigrant work visas will also conservatively bring an additional 500,000 foreign workers into the United States by 2008 (at current levels 85,000 – 115,000 H-1Bs annually and 55,000 L-1 visa annually) and another 1 million foreign workers by 2015. This assumes that congress can resist the demands of corporate America to return work visas to pre-2004 levels of 250,000-plus (H-1B and L-1) annually.
The safety nets are gone and our children will be compelled to walk the high wire of globalization by an elite class that has abandoned their duty to be good stewards of the American dream. After countless generations of Americans worked to build the structure of a strong and safe nation with a broad-based education system, a massive technical, transportation, and power infrastructure, and a cultural environment that supports business and market growth and ideals, this generation of elites conducts a fire sale and giveaway of generations of hard won entrustment.
What “destinies of high promise” will the children of this generation attain? Well, no one can really say, or more likely no one really wants to say. For the truth is that as eagerly as our elites charge down this path of a betrayed American entrustment it is their own wealth, glory, and power that light their way.
America’s white-collar workers held their tongues in large measure as our manufacturing base was ripped apart by trade deals like NAFTA, GATT, and WTO, an oversight they have now come to regret. Now as those same trade deals and every new trade deal forged under Fast Track Trade Authority begin to take their toll on the white collar job market it is becoming clear that the stops are out and this next shipment of middle-class job destruction is accelerating down the ramp onto the largely unsuspecting American middle-class.
Abraham Lincoln spoke of America as the “last great hope of mankind.” Ronald Reagan often used the inspiration of the 1630 sermon of John Winthrop's, "For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill”. The eyes of all people are upon us (Matthew 5:14)” as his vision of America.
However, preferring ROI (return on investment) to Thomas Jefferson, and the rigors of Ricardo’s comparative advantage to George Washington, our current leadership urges liquidation…”come one come all to the liquidation fire-sale of the American Dream,” as their vision for the new American century.
"…the question whether, by the laws of nature, one generation of men can, by any act of theirs, bind those which are to follow them? I say, by the laws of nature, there being between generation and generation, as between nation and nation, no other obligatory law." - Thomas Jefferson
As the nation runs up debts in the trillions of dollars to bail out US financial groups, whose hubris was staggering in view of their still uncalculated losses, it is time for the Republican Party to lose their affinity for Wall Street and return to the needs of Main Street. Malfeasance and financial misconduct have been evident in the Wall Street culture since at least 2000. And the same questionable practices that should have prompted an investigation of Wall Street practices and oversight have been blinking red as they concern America’s use of guest workers and the Department of Labor’s oversight of corporate America’s hiring practices. Conservatives in the Republican Party need to champion Main Street in the following areas:
Guest Worker (non-immigrant visa) Reforms: (http://www.programmersguild.org/factsheets/)
a) Reform the flawed "prevailing wage" calculation that allows employer to pay H-1b workers at the 17th percentile of what average-skilled Americans are paid within the same occupational classifications. Abolish the four DOL wage levels and mandate that H-1b be paid at least the average wage within the classification.
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