12/30/2007
Phyllis Schafly writes at World Net Daily:A Duke University spokesman said that 40 percent of Duke’s engineering graduates cannot get engineering jobs. A Duke University publication suggests that the best prospect for good engineering jobs is for the U.S. government to start another major project like going to the moon.Now, the thing is that the jobs issue and immigration are greatly intertwined. In The Jobs Crunch, I showed that in IT, immigration,especially via programs like H-1b, is a bigger factor in decreasing employment opportunities for Americans than outsourcing. Immigration is also a major factor in the reduction of disposable income for Americans in less skilled employment.U.S. News warns us that "government is becoming an employer of choice." Corporations are getting leaner, but government can continue to pay good salaries with lots of vacation days, sick leave, health insurance and retirement benefits, because government rakes in more tax revenue in good times and can raise taxes in bad times; and if the Democrats win in 2008, we can expect government to expand even more.
Presidential candidates have gotten the message from grass-roots Americans that we want our borders closed to illegal immigrants. Headlines now proclaim "Immigration moves to front and center of GOP race"and "GOP candidates hold fast on immigration at debate."
But Republican Party candidates haven’t yet gotten the message that jobs are just as big a gut issue as immigration. The Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey conducted Dec. 14-17 reports that, by 58 percent to 28 percent, Americans believe globalization is bad because it subjects U.S. companies and employees to unfair competition and cheap labor.[A Degree of Insignificance. December 28, 2007]
Outsourcing spurred by bad trade deals is still a major factor — but when you add bad immigration policies to bad trade deals the results are synergistic and devastating. The folks being most impact are those that are younger-and with less of an established lifestyle and career.
I applaud Mrs. Schafly for being a more genuine "family values" conservative than we typically see — because if we don’t have and economy that supports families, we won’t see that many truly stable families.
Promoting education will do very little if the US continues to have horrible trade and immigration policies.
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