Thursday, January 27, 2011

AMERICAN JOBS IN PERIL - THE COST OF OBAMA'S AMNESTIES, OPEN BORDERS & NON-ENFORCEMENT

MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com


“The Obama administration embodies this process. Its social and economic policies demonstrate that the US ruling elite is incapable either of reforming itself—by curbing the profit-gouging on Wall Street that triggered the financial crisis—or of providing social reforms that would benefit the masses of working people.”

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AMERICAN JOBS IN PERIL: The Impact of UNCONTROLLED IMMIGRATION



House Judiciary Republicans Hold Immigration Forum on Capitol Hill

On Thursday, November 19, Republican Members of the House Judiciary Committee held a forum entitled “American Jobs in Peril: The Impact of Uncontrolled Immigration.” The forum allowed several experts to offer testimony regarding the negative consequences that unrestricted mass immigration – both legal and illegal – has had on American workers.

House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-TX) opened the hearing by discussing data that the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had released earlier in the week. Smith pointed out that, while the nationwide unemployment rate has increased more than 60 percent from Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 to FY 2009, the number of criminal arrests, criminal indictments, criminal convictions, and administrative arrests of illegal alien workers as a result of ICE worksite enforcement operations had all decreased by at least 58% during that same time period. (House Judiciary Committee – Minority Press Release, November 18, 2009). Smith argued that with 16 million Americans out of work, the Obama administration should be increasing worksite enforcement to free up jobs held by the estimated eight million illegal aliens currently working in the United States.

Four expert witnesses testified at the hearing. The first was Dr. Carol Swain, a professor of Political Science and Law at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Swain’s testimony focused on the unemployment rates of African Americans and native-born Hispanics – two groups she said were particularly hard-hit by the current recession. Dr. Swain noted that “[r]acial and ethnic minorities are overrepresented among Americans suffering from high levels of unemployment,” and added that “[i]t is this group of native-born workers who are most adversely impacted by competition from unauthorized workers.” Dr. Swain then called on “Democrats and Republicans, members of the Congressional Black and Congressional Hispanic Caucuses to join forces in pressing for the enforcement of existing immigration laws and regulations already on the books.” The professor recommended that E-Verify – the online, electronically operated system that allows employers to quickly and easily confirm the work authorization status of their new hires – “should be made mandatory and expanded across the nation.”

OBAMA AND THE LA RAZA DEMS HAVE SABOTAGED E-VERIFY ENDLESSLY AS THEY HAVE JOBS FOR AMERICAN BORN.

The professor recommended that E-Verify – the online, electronically operated system that allows employers to quickly and easily confirm the work authorization status of their new hires – “should be made mandatory and expanded across the nation.”

Camarota noted that, over the past four decades, the United States has “witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of immigrants (both legal and illegal) arriving.” Camarota pointed out that “almost all economists agree that less-educated workers have done very poorly in the labor market over the last four decades as immigration has increased.”



Steven A. Camarota, the Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies, was the next witness to testify. Camarota noted that, over the past four decades, the United States has “witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of immigrants (both legal and illegal) arriving.” Camarota pointed out that “almost all economists agree that less-educated workers have done very poorly in the labor market over the last four decades as immigration has increased.” Echoing Dr. Swain’s testimony, Camarota then highlighted “significant research showing that immigration has reduced employment and wages for less-educated natives.” Camarota also dismissed the claims of special interest groups that have advocated for amnesty and large-scale increases in legal immigration, pointing out that “[t]here is no evidence of a labor shortage at the bottom end of the labor market.”

Roy Beck, President of NumbersUSA, testified next and highlighted three “key numbers.” The first number was eight million, the Pew Hispanic Center’s estimate as to the number of illegal foreign workers holding American jobs. (Pew Hispanic Center, April 14, 2009). Beck’s second number was 75,000, the estimated number of permanent work permits issued to working-age immigrants in the month of October. (DHS – Office of Immigration Statistics, March 2009). The third number was 190,000, the number of American jobs eliminated in the month of October. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 6, 2009). Accordingly, Beck argued, the federal “government added 75,000 more permanent workers to compete with 16 million unemployed Americans for 190,000 FEWER U.S. jobs.” (Testimony, November 19, 2009).

The final witness to testify at the forum was Jerry Kammer, a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. Kammer highlighted two separate reports discussing how local labor markets were affected by immigration enforcement. (See reports from July 2009 and March 2009). Kammer discussed how worksite enforcement operations conducted at seven meat packing plants in seven states had resulted in the arrests of thousands of illegal alien workers, providing “an opportunity to test the claim, often heard in the immigration debate, that many American businesses have to hire illegal immigrants because Americans are unwilling to do the work.” Kammer pointed out that the meat packing plants filled the jobs formerly held by illegal aliens with American citizens and legal immigrants, and that immigration enforcement had led to increased wages and improved working conditions at the plants in question. (Testimony, November 19, 2009

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Once again: Obama and the jobs crisis

24 November 2009

The Obama administration has flatly rejected appeals for the federal government to take any direct action to create jobs and alleviate the mounting toll of unemployment in the United States. Obama reiterated this position in his Saturday radio/Internet address, and it was echoed by top aides in media interviews over the weekend.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told the Wall Street Journal, “There are two engines to our economic message, two ways to generate jobs. One is small business, the second is energy.” He implicitly rejected any suggestion of direct government hiring for public works projects in favor of tax credits or eased lending terms for private, profit-making businesses.

The Journal article published Monday began: “The White House is lukewarm about proposals by congressional Democrats to introduce broad legislation to create jobs, instead favoring targeted measures that would be less likely to inflate the deficit, administration officials said.” Besides Emanuel, the newspaper cited opposition by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to a tax on financial transactions that would finance a jobs program, as proposed by some House Democrats.

Obama’s Saturday speech was remarkable for its callous indifference to the plight of the unemployed. He gave lip service to the problem, declaring at the beginning, “As we emerge from the worst recession in generations, there is nothing more important than to do everything we can to get our economy moving again and put Americans back to work.”

“Everything we can” turns out to be little more than talk—a White House forum on jobs, to be held December 3, and perhaps more tax cuts for corporate interests. “In order to keep growing, we need to spend less, save more, and get our federal deficit under control,” Obama said. “It is important that we do not make any ill-considered decisions—even with the best of intentions—particularly at a time when our resources are so limited,” he concluded.

“Limited resources” were not a consideration when it came to bailing out Wall Street. The US Treasury and the Federal Reserve made available trillions to the financial institutions. But when it comes to the working class, Obama has repeatedly demanded austerity measures.

The administration forced General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy and imposed sweeping wage and benefit cuts on the auto workers. Obama has insisted that any health care legislation “not add a dime to the deficit,” and now the White House rejects any direct job-creation measures in the name of reducing the deficit.

The barely concealed contempt of Obama and other top administration officials for working people is all the more remarkable under conditions of double-digit unemployment and reports that 49 million Americans faced hunger last year and that home foreclosures are continuing at record rates. The jobs crisis is downplayed as a “lagging economic indicator.” The hunger report, released last week, evoked a perfunctory response from Obama, who warned that worsening malnutrition among children was dangerous because it threatened America’s global competitiveness.

Meanwhile, Obama congratulates himself for restabilizing the banks while Wall Street reaps bumper profits and prepares to award its executives and traders with record bonuses next month, secure in the knowledge that the administration opposes any real restrictions on bankers’ pay.

Obama voiced his hard line against new spending to create jobs in an interview during his China trip with the right-wing Fox News. “There may be some tax provisions that can encourage businesses to hire sooner rather than sitting on the sidelines. So we’re taking a look at those,” he said. “I think it is important, though, to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the US economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.”

It is no accident that Obama took time from his China trip to reiterate his opposition to any major increase in social spending. This was in large part intended to reassure the Chinese, who hold some $800 billion in Treasury notes and are the biggest creditor of the United States.

Central to the global strategy of the American ruling class, which has more than doubled the federal deficit in order to bail out the banks, is a sharp reduction in the wages and living standards of American workers, whose conditions must be brought more closely in line with those of super-exploited workers in Asia. On the basis of what Obama calls “lower consumption,” the US is to pare down its debt and transform itself into a cheap-labor center for exports to the world market.

This policy of “everything for the banks, nothing for jobs” is so blatantly hostile to the working class that some of Obama’s nominally liberal supporters have issued appeals for the president to change course, warning that otherwise he risks a social and political explosion.

Congressman Peter DeFazio of Oregon told CNN, “It’s pretty embarrassing for a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress to be identified with total attention to Wall Street and nothing for Main Street and jobs.”

A joint statement by the AFL-CIO, NAACP and four other organizations, issued November 16, urged Obama to adopt a five-point jobs program, including an effort to “directly create jobs that put people to work helping communities meet pressing needs, especially in distressed communities facing severe unemployment.”

Perhaps the most remarkable expression of concern came from economist Paul Krugman, a columnist for the New York Times who has been a fervent supporter of Obama’s health care plan. He took note of Obama’s comments to Fox News about the danger of growing federal deficits, then observed: “It took me a while to puzzle this out. But the concerns Mr. Obama expressed become comprehensible if you suppose that he’s getting his views, directly or indirectly, from Wall Street.”

Krugman has blurted out the real social base of the Obama administration. Obama, Emanuel, Geithner & Co. echo the views of bankers and speculators because that is whom they represent and serve. Obama heads an administration of, by and for the most powerful financial interests.

This is not a government of reform that is being led astray by right-wing pressure, or can be pushed to the left by counter-pressure from below. It is a government of social and political reaction.

Ultimately, the policies of the Obama administration are determined by the objective historical decline of American capitalism. Even in the depths of the Great Depression, the Roosevelt administration could enact limited social reform policies because it had at its disposal the vast economic reserves of American capitalism, then the industrial powerhouse of the world.

In the intervening decades, the United States has undergone a dramatic economic decline, expressed in its most concentrated form in the decay of its industrial base and the transformation of the US into the global center of financial speculation and parasitism. The result is unprecedented levels of social inequality, relentless attacks on the conditions of the working class, and the rise of a financial aristocracy that dominates the political system and dictates basic government policy.

The Obama administration embodies this process. Its social and economic policies demonstrate that the US ruling elite is incapable either of reforming itself—by curbing the profit-gouging on Wall Street that triggered the financial crisis—or of providing social reforms that would benefit the masses of working people.

WE SAW HOW MUCH OBAMA IS BUSH IN DRAG WHEN HE FINALLY GOT HIMSELF TO NEW ORLEANS!

Obama’s refusal to take action on the jobs crisis and his undisguised indifference to the suffering which has swept over working class America are increasingly recognized by millions of working people. Initially, this is reflected in plummeting poll numbers. Soon enough, it will be expressed in the eruption of major struggles as workers and young people abandon illusions in the phony promises of “hope” and “change” and take action to defend their independent social and class interests.

Patrick Martin

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