Increasing number of US seniors living in poverty
UPDATE ON OBAMA’S ABUSE OF SEQUESTER:
Under this device, Obama continued his sabotaged of homeland security and
furloughed 6,000 border guards as well as let thousands of Mexican criminals go
before their deportation. Then he handed the Muslim dictators of Egypt $250
million. Congress stopped him from handing them all he wanted!
BARACK OBAMA… THE MAN THAT HATED AMERICANS,
BUT LOVED AMERICAN BANKSTERS!
How
To Accurately Detect Disingenuous Politicians
"Just look for the ones talking about jobs, taxes, health
care, education, and government budgets, without addressing the negative impact
of illegal immigration." -- William Gheen, President
of ALIPAC.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-accurately-detect-disingenuous.html
*
HE IS PRESIDENT FOR THE 1%, CRIMINAL BANKSTERS AND ILLEGALS. THE
REST OF US GET THE TAX BILLS TO BAIL OUT HIS CRIMES.
RECENTLY BARACK OBAMA PLACED 2,500 TROOPS IN AUSTRALIA… YES,
AUSTRALIA EVEN AS HE HAS REPEATEDLY HAS REMOVED TROOPS FROM OUR BORDER WHILE
HIS LA RAZA PROPAGANDIZED JANET NAPOLITANO PROCLAIMED OUR BORDERS SECURE AND AN
EASY PATHWAY TO CITIZENSHIP AND AMERICAN JOBS.
“Border Patrol agents will see their hours
reduced.
DURING OBAMA’S FIRST TERM ALONE, 2/3s OF ALL JOBS WENT TO
IMMIGRANTS, BOTH LEGAL AND ILLEGAL. OBAMA USES HIS DEPT. of LA RAZA JUSTICE TO
SUE FOUR AMERICAN STATES AND SABOTAGE E-VERIFY ON BEHALF OF HIS LA RAZA PARTY
BASE of ILLEGALS. DURING OBAMA’S FIRST TERM, HIS SEC. of (illegal) LABOR WAS LA
RAZA SUPREMACIST HILDA SOLIS AND WORKPLACE ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS PROHIBITING THE
EMPLOYMENT OF ILLEGALS PLUMMETED 70%. NOW THAT ILLEGALS REELECTED OBAMA, IT IS
EXPECTED TO BE NON-EXISTENT HIS SECOND TERM.
The number of layoffs of
public-sector workers during the first term of the Obama administration is
twice that of any other presidency.
Obama has been pushing for this measure as part of a
so-called “grand bargain” that would lower corporate taxes from the current
rate of 35 percent to 28 percent, while including hundreds of billions of
dollars in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Published by the International Committee
of the Fourth International (ICFI)
Obama calls for more spending cuts to prevent “sequestration”
By Andre Damon
21 February 2013
US President Barack Obama called on congressional Republicans
Tuesday to reach a deal to quickly implement billions of dollars in spending cuts
in order to head off the so-called “sequestration” that is scheduled to take
effect at the end of the month.
The sequestration, moved to the end of this month as a result of
the bipartisan deal reached last year to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff,” is
a set of budget cuts that neither party supports because they include sharp
reductions to military spending.
Speaking at a White House press conference, Obama called on
lawmakers to adopt a “balanced approach” to deficit reduction that would
include revenue increases in addition to spending cuts. Up to now, Republicans
have stated their opposition to any deal that would raise revenues, whether by
raising taxes or cutting tax “loopholes,” as the administration proposes.
Obama’s comments were, as always, contrived and cynical. On
the face of things, Obama postured as the defender of teachers, firefighters
and other workers who stand to be laid off as a result of the sequestration.
But in reality his opposition to the sequester cuts is based entirely on the
fact that the cuts to military spending it entails would reduce the US’s
military capacity.
“Our military leaders have made clear, changes like this—not well
thought through, not phased in properly—changes like this affect our ability to
respond to threats in unstable parts of the world,” he said, adding, “Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced. FBI agents will be
furloughed. Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go.”
Adding to Obama’s warnings, the Defense Department said Wednesday
that if the cuts go through, 800,000 civilian employees would be forced to take
one unpaid furlough day per week, beginning the last week of April. The measure
would last 22 weeks, and include office staff, maintenance workers, and other personnel.
Earlier Wednesday, USA Today had reported that, were the
sequestration to go into effect as scheduled, the Army and Navy alone would lay
off or furlough 486,000 people throughout the country.
Obama’s opposition to the sequestration cuts has nothing to
do with any real opposition to cuts to social spending. Obama has called for
$1.5 trillion in additional “deficit reduction” on top of the roughly $2.5
trillion that has already been passed. While both parties agree to this
ballpark figure in principle, Obama is insisting that that spending cuts be
associated with increases in revenues, much of which will come through the
elimination of tax benefits that benefit broader sections of the working class.
Obama has been pushing for this measure as part of a so-called
“grand bargain” that would lower corporate taxes from the current rate of 35
percent to 28 percent, while including hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts
to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Earlier Tuesday, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the former
co-chairmen of the White Houses’s bipartisan deficit-reduction commission, held
a press conference to propose a set of budget cuts along similar lines to
Obama’s comprehensive proposal, although larger in size: $2.4 trillion over 10
years, compared to the White House’s proposed $1.5 trillion.
The Simpson-Bowles proposal would cut $600 billion from
federal health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid, while Obama has
proposed an additional $400 billion on top of the cuts that have already been
imposed. Commentators were quick to point out that the proposal was far more
similar to Obama’s plan than that of the Republicans, since it included a
mixture of spending cuts and revenue increases.
The “sequester” is part of the stage-managed campaign by the two
big business parties to impose unpopular policies through manufactured crises.
The first installment was made in the aftermath of the 2011 debt ceiling
crisis.
The next stage in the process was the so-called fiscal cliff,
which was resolved through an agreement to increase taxes on workers, as well
as a token increase in taxes on the rich, to be compensated for by planned cuts
to corporate taxes that both parties have in principle agreed to.
The attempt by the Obama administration to posture as an opponent
of budget cuts is cynical. Obama has overseen an austerity program
unprecedented in postwar US history. The number of
layoffs of public-sector workers during the first term of the Obama
administration is twice that of any other presidency.
The so-called Obama
recovery has been nothing but a recovery of corporate profits, which have set
records three years in a row, at the expense of workers’ wages and working
conditions.
This was amply demonstrated in data released last month by
Emmanuel Saez, which found that between 2009 and 2011—the first two years of
the “recovery”—“Top 1 percent incomes grew by 11.2 percent while bottom 99
percent incomes shrunk by 0.4 percent. Hence, the top 1 percent captured 121
percent of the income gains in the first two years of the recovery.”
While it is impossible to predict the immediate outcome of the
sequestration debate, the end result will be the same: both parties are
committed to trillions in spending cuts, whether piecemeal, as has been the
case up to now, or in one large agreement.
*
The only thing that has changed since 2009, is that
Obama has abetted the nation being flooded with illegals to build his LA RAZA
PARTY BASE and keep wages depressed!
WHY THE JOBS GO TO ILLEGALS:
“At the hearing,
Dr. Rakesh Kochar, Associate Director for Research at the Pew Hispanic Center,
testified that in the year following the official end of the recession (June
2009), foreign-born workers gained 656,000 jobs while native-born workers lost
an additional 1.2 million jobs.”
“What employers really
want in many cases by hiring immigrants is to hold down wage costs, experts
say.”
*
UNDER OBAMA, TWO-THIRDS OF JOBS GO TO HIS PARTY BASE OF
ILLEGALS!
"We have a situation
where the job market — the bottom fell out, yet we kept legal immigration
relatively high without even a national debate," he said. "As a
consequence, a lot of the job growth has been going to immigrants."
Mr. Obama did take action
this year to grant many illegal immigrants up to 30 years of age a tentative
legal status that prevents them from being deported and authorizes them to work
in the United States.
Some Republicans in
Congress have criticized Mr. Obama's policy, saying it violates his powers and
will mean more competition for scarce jobs.
*
Guess LA
RAZA his happy with OBAMA’S endless hispandering! THEY SHOULD BE!
There are only eight states with a larger
population than LOS ANGELES COUNTY, where 47% of those with a job are ILLEGALS
USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS! This same mex gang infested county puts
out $600 million in welfare to illegals!
*
“The
inspections have determined that hundreds of companies throughout the U.S. have
significant numbers of illegal
immigrants on their payroll
yet none have been punished, according to a Houston newspaper that obtained
internal ICE records through the Freedom of Information Act. At least 430 audit
cases listed as “closed” by the agency had high percentages of workers with
“questionable” documents yet they faced no consequences.”
THE ENTIRE REASON THE BORDERS ARE LEFT OPEN
IS TO CUT WAGES!
“We could cut
unemployment in half simply by reclaiming the jobs taken by illegal workers,”
said Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, co-chairman of the Reclaim
American Jobs Caucus. “President Obama is on the wrong side of the American
people on immigration. The president should support policies that help citizens
and legal immigrants find the jobs they need and deserve rather than fail to
enforce immigration laws.”
*
“The principal
beneficiaries of our current immigration policy are affluent Americans who hire
immigrants at substandard wages for low-end work. Harvard economist George
Borjas estimates that American workers lose $190 billion annually in depressed
wages caused by the constant flooding of the labor market at the low-wage end.”
Christian Science Monitor
*
Obama and the jobs crisis
12 November 2009
In the face of a record rise in joblessness, the Obama
administration continues to demonstrate its callous indifference to the plight
of millions of unemployed workers and their families.
The
official unemployment rate shot up to 10.2 percent in October, the highest
level since 1983. Nearly 16 million people are jobless, an increase of 7
million since the recession began. If workers who have given up looking for
work and those forced to work part-time are added, the real unemployment rate
is 17.5 percent—or more than one out of every six workers in the US—the highest
rate since the Great Depression.
The
White House responded to the job figures by repeating its mantra that
employment is a “lagging indicator” in an otherwise recovering economy. While
acknowledging 10 percent was a “sobering number,” the president said, “History
tells us that job growth always lags behind economic growth.” The president
added complacently, “Although it will take time and it will take patience, I am
confident that we are moving in the right direction.”
The
suggestion that the unemployment trend will soon reverse itself is a lie. Most
economists now predict that double-digit unemployment will last for years.
Nevertheless, the administration has rejected any government-funded public
works program to hire the unemployed. The Washington Post recently noted
that White House officials reject the idea because it “does not produce
long-term value”; that is to say, it does not produce profits for big business.
The
issue of employment has long been at the center of economic and political life
in America. The last century saw New Deal public works projects, and “Full
Employment” programs, which, while woefully inadequate, were presented as an
effort to battle the scourge of mass unemployment. In the Obama administration
the question has become a non-issue.
This
inaction and indifference has produced a series of warnings from Obama’s
liberal supporters concerned over the explosive social and political
consequences of a worsening jobs crisis.
On
Tuesday, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert worried that “more and
more Americans are questioning [Obama’s] priorities, including millions that
went to the mat for him in last year’s election.” “The lack of jobs,” he
continued, “is fueling the nervousness, anxiety and full-blown anger that are
becoming increasing evident in the public at large.”
In
a Washington Post article, entitled, “Why won’t Obama give you a job?,”
staff writer Alec MacGillis complained that the administration has “studiously
avoided paying people to go to work” like the government did in the 1930s and
1970s. “Engaging in more forthright job creation could invite some political
pitfalls (such as those constant accusations of socialism), but is double-digit
unemployment any less a political risk?”
Such
appeals fall on deaf ears. Obama’s disinterest is not a tactical mistake but
the result of the social and class interests the president and both political
parties defend.
While
doing nothing to relieve working people, the administration has spared no
expense and wasted no time in augmenting the wealth and power of the financial
oligarchy that rules America. It has handed trillions to Wall Street, driven GM
and Chrysler into bankruptcy to slash the wages of auto workers, and pushed the
restructuring of the health care system to gut Medicare and reduce medical
costs for big business. In foreign policy, the administration has squandered
hundreds of billions and the lives of thousands of soldiers in two colonial
wars to control the energy rich regions of world.
The
continued high level of joblessness and economic insecurity is a deliberate aim
of the administration. The threat of job losses is being used to break the
resistance of American workers to a permanent reduction in their living
standards and working conditions.
In
the July-September quarter, productivity grew at a 9.5 percent annual rate,
according to a government report. Even though working hours fell by a 5 percent
annual rate, output increased at a 4 percent rate. “So people working shorter
hours had to do the same amount of work as before, or more,” BusinessWeek
noted. “People who kept their jobs had to pick up the work of ex-colleagues” or
simply put in extra hours that weren’t counted in the statistics. As a result,
unit labor costs fell 3.6 percent over the past year, the largest decrease
since records were first kept in 1948.
This
increase in exploitation is central to the administration’s plans to
restructure American capitalism on behalf of the most powerful sections of the
financial elite. The ruling class is seeking to lift itself out of the ruins of
its own economic crisis by transforming the US into a cheap labor platform to
increase exports, and by carrying out a policy of austerity at home to make the
working class pay for the bailout of Wall Street.
If
the working class is to oppose this assault it must assert it own class
interests and develop a programmatic response to the economic crisis.
The
Socialist Equality Party insists that employment and decent living standards
must be guaranteed to all. The guiding principle of jobs policy must be to
protect the working population from destitution, and provide employment for the
purpose of raising the material and cultural level of the people, not profits
for the capitalists.
The
SEP calls for the sharing of available work among all workers with no loss of
pay. Every worker should be guaranteed 30 hours of work at 40 hours of pay,
with quality health and retirement benefits.
A
multi-trillion public works program must be launched to hire the unemployed and
put them to work to address pressing social needs. Projects must be launched to
build affordable housing, guarantee high quality health care and education,
expand public transportation and carry out other improvements in the physical
and social infrastructure.
To
secure the necessary resources, the grip of the financial aristocracy must be
broken by nationalizing the banks under public ownership and confiscating the
ill-gotten gains of the rich and super-rich. Capitalism is incapable of meeting
the social needs produced by its own calamity. It must be replaced with a
social system that does, socialism.
In
place of the anarchy and socially destructive “free market” system, the economy
must be reorganized on the basis of a democratic plan to meet the needs of
society as a whole, not private profit. The socialist transformation of the US
economy must be part of a globally planned economy, in which working people
control the wealth that they produce.
The
fight for this requires the building of a new political party of the working
class to oppose the twin parties of big business and fight for political power.
Such a party must be based on the fight for its political independence,
internationalism and the socialist transformation of society. This is aim of
the Socialist Equality Party.
Jerry
White
*
Interceptions
of immigrants stubbornly low
Border security
efforts have a long way to go
The Washington Times
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Despite
massive increases in manpower, the U.S. Border Patrol is still intercepting
only about 61 percent of would-be illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico
border, according to an audit that the investigative arm of Congress released
Wednesday.
The
findings, which for the first time show a broad estimate of how many illegal
immigrants the Border Patrol fails to catch each year, emerge as pressure
builds on Congress to move past border security and begin to grant legal status
to the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
The
Government Accountability Office report found that an estimated 208,813 illegal
immigrants escaped capture along the nearly 2,000-mile border. Slightly more
than half of them turned back to Mexico, and the others proceeded deeper into
the U.S., the report said.
The
report also said that the Obama administration has gone more than two years
without having an effective yardstick for measuring border security, meaning
there is no good way to evaluate the job the Border Patrol is doing.
"The
bottom line is we are far from having operational control of our borders,
particularly the southwest border, and as the GAO reports, there still are no
metrics to quantify progress," said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman
Michael McCaul, Texas Republican. "Meanwhile, the threat from groups
ranging from Islamist extremists to drug cartels continues to grow."
Border
security has been a chief focus of immigration efforts since 2007, when the
last major immigration reform bill failed in Congress. After that failure,
Republicans said voters wanted the border secured before any legalization took
place, and President Bush poured resources into the Border Patrol.
According
to the GAO, the number of illegal border crossings has dropped, as has the
number of illegal immigrants the Border Patrol apprehends. It's unclear how
much of that is a result of stricter enforcement and how much is because of the
slumping U.S. economy and changes in Mexico.
But the
GAO report painted a picture of an agency struggling to come up with ways to
measure its effectiveness.
Two
years ago, the Obama administration ditched the "operational control"
yardstick that the Bush administration developed. The yardstick showed that
just a fraction of the border was effectively sealed.
The
Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Border Patrol, said in its
official response to the GAO that it is trying to come up with a new yardstick
by the end of November — which would mean it will have gone three years without
a measure of border enforcement effectiveness.
"[The
Department of Homeland Security] fully appreciates the importance and need of
having measurable goals to assess progress in the area of border
security," Jim H. Crumpacker, Homeland Security's liaison to GAO, said in
the department's response.
He said
the Border Patrol has added some tools to try to track repeat illegal crossers,
and uses internal measures to track progress.
The
Border Patrol always has been able to say how many illegal immigrants it
captured, but until recently it had little idea of how many crossed without
being apprehended.
Now,
with the boost in radar, sensors and other tools, the Border Patrol can
estimate that number — and that gets it closer to coming up with a good
yardstick of effectiveness, said Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the
defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service who just completed a review of
immigration enforcement for the Migration Policy Institute.
She said
that its particularly true in the Tucson, Ariz., sector, where the
infrastructure has been built and where the Border Patrol is trying to figure
out a measure of "baseline flows."
"What
Tucson is trying to determine, and what some other parts of the border think
that they're at, is what's their baseline flow — in other words, what do they
have to recognize, all other things being equal, is the normal course of
illegal crossing activity," Ms. Meissner said.
She said
It's a difficult balance, since not all crossings are the same.
Some
likely represent the same person trying to cross multiple times, while others
are high-risk crossers from countries that pose a risk of terrorism. The Border
Patrol is trying to grapple with all of those factors in coming up with a new
measure of security.
In 2011,
the GAO said, the Border Patrol apprehended 327,118 illegal border crossers,
while it estimates another 208,813 got away. Of those, 85,827 escaped into the
U.S. and the rest turned back.
Auditors
cautioned that the numbers are not exact because they often depend on judgment
calls about whether someone was deemed to have turned back based on tracks or
other signs.
The
Border Patrol is still working on numbers for 2012.
But the
numbers do show progress from 2006, when the Border Patrol apprehended 1.1
million, while more than 900,000 got away.
President
Obama has said he will write immigration legislation this year and submit it to
Congress. The legislation is expected to contain a legalization program for the
estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
But
Steven A. Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies,
said the numbers should be a warning to lawmakers who say the border is secure
enough to tackle legalization.
"This
doesn't count the northern border, the coastline, perhaps an equal number of
people who overstay temporary visas in the United States," he said.
"The question is, 'Is that control?' Most people would say if several
hundred thousand people successfully sneak across one of your borders, you've
still got a serious problem."
Among
other findings, GAO investigators said the rate of repeat offenders has dropped
from about 42 percent in 2008 to 36 percent in 2011.
The Administration's Phantom
Immigration Enforcement Policy
According to DHS’s own reports, very
little of our nation’s borders (Southwestern or otherwise) are secure, and
gaining control is not even a goal of the department.
By Ira Mehlman
Published on 12/07/2009
Townhall.com
The setting was not quite the
flight deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln with a “Mission Accomplished” banner
as the backdrop, but it was the next best thing. Speaking at the Center for
American Progress (CAP) on Nov. 13, Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano declared victory over illegal immigration and announced that the
Obama administration is ready to move forward with a mass amnesty for the
millions of illegal aliens already living in the United States.
Arguing the Obama
administration’s case for amnesty, Napolitano laid out what she described as the
“three-legged stool” for immigration reform. As the administration views it,
immigration reform must include “a commitment to serious and effective
enforcement, improved legal flows for families and workers, and a firm but fair
way to deal with those who are already here.”
Acknowledging that a lack of
confidence in the government’s ability and commitment to effectively enforce
the immigration laws it passes proved to be the Waterloo of previous efforts to
gain amnesty for illegal aliens, Napolitano was quick to reassure the American
public that those concerns could be put to rest.
“For starters, the security
of the Southwest border has been transformed from where it was in 2007,” stated
the secretary. Not only is the border locked up tight, she continued, but the
situation is well in-hand in the interior of the country as well. “We’ve also
shown that the government is serious and strategic in its approach to
enforcement by making changes in how we enforce the law in the interior of the
country and at worksites…Furthermore, we’ve transformed worksite enforcement to
truly address the demand side of illegal immigration.”
If Rep. Joe Wilson had been
in attendance to hear Secretary Napolitano’s CAP speech he might well have had
a few choice comments to offer. But since he wasn’t, we will have to rely on
the Department of Homeland Security’s own data to assess the veracity of
Napolitano’s claims.
According to DHS’s own
reports, very little of our nation’s borders (Southwestern or otherwise) are
secure, and gaining control is not even a goal of the department. DHS claims to
have “effective control” over just 894 miles of border. That’s 894 out of 8,607
miles they are charged with protecting. As for the other 7,713 miles? DHS’s
stated border security goal for FY 2010 is the same 894 miles.
The administration’s
strategic approach to interior and worksite enforcement is just as chimerical
as its strategy at the border, unless one considers shuffling paper to be a
strategy. DHS data, released November 18, show that administrative arrests of
immigration law violators fell by 68 percent between 2008 and 2009. The
department also carried out 60 percent fewer arrests for criminal violations of
immigration laws, 58 percent fewer criminal indictments, and won 63 percent
fewer convictions.
While the official
unemployment rate has climbed from 7.6 percent when President Obama took office
in January to 10 percent today, the administration’s worksite enforcement
strategy has amounted to a bureaucratic game of musical chairs. The administration
has all but ended worksite enforcement actions and replaced them with paperwork
audits. When the audits determine that illegal aliens are on the payroll,
employers are given the opportunity to fire them with little or no adverse
consequence to the company, while no action is taken to remove the illegal
workers from the country. The illegal workers simply acquire a new set of
fraudulent documents and move on to the next employer seeking workers willing
to accept substandard wages.
In Janet Napolitano’s
alternative reality a mere 10 percent of our borders under “effective control”
and sharp declines in arrests and prosecutions of immigration lawbreakers may
be construed as confidence builders, but it is hard to imagine that the
American public is going to see it that way. If anything, the administration’s
record has left the public less confident that promises of future immigration
enforcement would be worth the government paper they’re printed on.
As Americans scrutinize the
administration’s plans to overhaul immigration policy, they are likely to find
little in the “three-legged stool” being offered that they like or trust. The
first leg – enforcement – the administration has all but sawed off. The second
– increased admissions of extended family members and workers – makes little
sense with some 25 million Americans either unemployed or relegated to
part-time work. And the third – amnesty for millions of illegal aliens – is
anathema to their sense of justice and fair play.
As Americans well know, declaring
“Mission Accomplished” and actually accomplishing a mission are two completely
different things. When it comes to enforcing immigration laws, the only message
the public is receiving from this administration is “Mission Aborted.”
*
Obama soft on illegals enforcement
Arrests of illegal immigrant workers have dropped
precipitously under President Obama, according to figures released Wednesday.
Criminal arrests, administrative arrests, indictments and convictions of
illegal immigrants at work sites all fell by more than 50 percent from
fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2009.
The figures show that Mr. Obama has made good on his pledge
to shift enforcement away from going after illegal immigrant workers themselves
- but at the expense of Americans' jobs, said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the
Republican who compiled the numbers from the Department of Homeland Security's
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Mr. Smith, the top
Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said a period of economic turmoil
is the wrong time to be cutting enforcement and letting illegal immigrants take
jobs that Americans otherwise would hold.