05/17/2013
H/T One Old Vet
Over at Red State the redoubtable Daniel Horowitz has elegantly highlighted the ugly Statism the Gang Bill plans to exert over labor markets:
…we can always import an infinite number of people from destitute parts of the world who will dramatically depress wages. That would definitely satisfy the needs of some industries and would most likely lower the cost of lettuce and tomatoes. But that would not represent free market policy; it would represent corporate welfare.
Ironically, the gang bill will distort the labor market to such a degree that it necessitated the creation of an entire wage control regime both for low and high skilled workers. Yes, the “free market” libertarians are supporting a bill that will create a new Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research to analyze unemployment and wages, promulgating wage requirements according to artificial benchmarks.
Immigration, Wages, and Free Markets May 17th 2013
However as was also the case in his excellent essay on the Heritage Cost Study, I think haste has caused an overreach. I do not believe the academic literature proves the statement:
There’s no doubt that when immigration ensues in a gradual and orderly manner, in a way that benefits the country at large, it will stimulate the economy and compensate for any small reduction in wages.
Maybe some lip service to neocon dogma is compulsory at RedState
A highly astute commenter raises further qualificationsIn a sense … the appeal of illegal immigrant labor is that it is illegal.
Make it legal and we will just increase the number of idle people on welfare. Take your example of the San Joaquin valley farmers. Despite their labor shortage the overall unemployment rate in that part of the state is in the high double digits and has been for more than a decade. In fact, CA has had an unemployment rate higher than the national average for more than 20 years.
and
Oh and, " No country will naturally implement an immigration system that makes assimilation impossible and burdens the broader tax base with too many low-wage earners in too short a period of time." is not accurate. The labor party in Great Britain openly admits that they did exactly that for electoral advantage, as the democrats are trying here.
which Brenda Walker noted this week as did I when that scandal first broke.
But Horowitz deserves great credit in spotlighting the Gang Bill objective for most Americans: low paid, government-managed serfdom.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.