Bailout of US corporations expands while
workers see little relief
Two weeks after the passage of the $2.2 trillion coronavirus
pandemic corporate bailout bill, grotesquely misnamed the CARES Act, it is
clear that it was only the initial shot in the funneling of countless trillions
of dollars to the corporate-financial aristocracy that rules America.
While billions have already flowed to the corporations and
banks, the limited provisions of the act that were touted by both parties as a
boon to working people hit by the shutdown of much of the economy have yet to
kick in, and for millions they likely never will.
The act includes $454 billion as a Treasury
backstop to enable the Federal Reserve to
provide some $4 trillion in cheap loans to
major corporations and banks, meaning the
real scale of the bailout—thus far—is more
than $6 trillion.
The vast bulk of the money allocated goes to covering any losses
suffered by major corporations and fueling a new surge in the stock market. That
it has succeeded, at least for the present, in lifting the markets is seen in
more than 10 percent surge in the Dow over the past several trading days. This
has occurred in the midst of an ever-rising toll of death and suffering from
the pandemic and grim projections by bankers and economists of a
depression-level contraction in the economy and a catastrophic growth of
unemployment.
The expanding scale of the bailout and euphoria on the financial
markets, alongside the economic and social catastrophe facing the broad mass of
the population, demonstrates that the interests of the ruling class and those
of the working class are diametrically opposed. The response of the
ruling elite and its two political parties to the crisis has from the onset
been single-mindedly focused on defending the economic interests of
corporate-financial oligarchy, no matter the cost in human life.
In just the last several weeks, the Federal Reserve Board has
announced at least 12 major measures to rescue the financial markets and
backstop big business. These include:
·
Two emergency interest rate cuts,
bringing the benchmark lending rate back down to near-zero
·
A pledge to purchase at least
$500 billion in Treasury securities and $200 billion in mortgage-backed
securities and to continue the program for “as long as needed”
·
Nearly unlimited sums in
short-term loans to 25 large financial institutions that control the market for
repurchase agreements, or repos, including $1.5 trillion in the days following
the announcement
·
Foreign exchange swap lines, the
purchase of short-term loans to US corporations in the commercial paper market,
short-term loans to 24 large financial institutions, and, for the first time
ever, direct purchases of corporate bonds and direct loans to corporations.
The Wall
Street Journal quoted Jean Boivin, head of BlackRock
Investment Institute, as saying, “The amount of measures taken in a short
amount of time is surreal and unprecedented.”
“It’s kind of crazy how they’ve almost done as much in this week
as they did in several months in 2008,” JPMorgan’s chief US economist Michael
Feroli said last month. “Now they do have the advantage of just being able to
dust off [former Fed Chairman] Bernanke’s playbook.”
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell gave a blanket
guarantee of unlimited funds to corporate
America, telling the “Today” show this week,
“Where credit is not flowing, we have the
ability in this unique circumstance to step in
and provide those loans.”
Now both the Trump administration and the Democrats have
committed to provide an additional $250 billion to the so-called “Paycheck
Protection Program.” That is the Orwellian name given by the two parties to the
$350 billion program ostensibly established to provide government-backed loans
to small businesses, many of which face bankruptcy as a result of the shutdown
of much of the economy, and save the jobs of their workers over the next eight weeks. (That
this is farcically inadequate, even if implemented in full, in the midst of the
greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, is self-evident).
The program is designed to provide a windfall for the big banks,
which actually extend and administer the loans that are backed by the Small
Business Administration (SBA). This ensures that Wall Street receives billions
of dollars in fees and other charges.
On the eve of the official launching of the program last Friday,
the law was amended, under pressure from the banks, to double the interest rate
from 0.5 percent to 1.0 percent. Now the banks are demanding that the Fed buy
any loans they extend to small businesses so as to remove them from their
balance sheets. This will allow them to more freely engage in financial
speculation and parasitic activities such as stock buybacks.
Moreover, the great bulk of the money will go not to mom-and-pop
groceries, gas stations or eateries, but rather to large corporations that are
included in the program. Thus, for example, the program was amended to include
billion-dollar restaurant and hotel chains.
Small businesses desperate for cash are finding it difficult if
not impossible to actually find lenders who will provide the loans, even if
their applications are approved by the SBA. Banks, intent on maximizing
profits, are turning down applications right and left.
Citigroup is refusing to participate. Bank of America is not
accepting applications from companies that have borrowed from other banks.
Wells Fargo says it has already reached “capacity.”
Hundreds of thousands of businesses have applied under the
program, but to date only a handful have received any money.
Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are pressing the Trump
administration to expand the $50 billion bailout of the airlines included in
the CARES Act. This is, supposedly, another “jobs-saving” effort. Delta, for
its part, has already laid off thousands of its employees.
There are no real restrictions in the law on how the
corporations use the money they are given by the government. No one should
doubt that the airline carriers, which spent some $16 billion over the past
three years to purchase their own stock—in order to further enrich their top
executives and major investors by driving up the stock price—will use their
bailout money to do more of the same.
The Trump administration, for its part, is reportedly
considering such additional “stimulus” measures as a payroll tax cut—which
would starve Social Security of funding—a capital gains tax cut, 50-year
Treasury bonds and a waiver that would relieve businesses of liability for
employees who contract the coronavirus on the job.
Trump has moved to negate even the token congressional oversight
of the bailout program mandated in the law. On Monday, he named a White House
lawyer and Trump loyalist, Brian Miller, as inspector general of the Treasury
Department’s $350 billion small business (“Payroll Protection Program”), and on
Tuesday he removed Glenn Fine as head of the Pandemic Response Accountability
Committee, tasked with monitoring the entire $2.2 trillion program. Trump
replaced him with a “senior policy adviser” at US Customs and Border
Protection, Jason Abend.
Workers are finding that the promised relief from the bailout
law—which accounts for only a small fraction of the total cost of the
measure—is uncertain if not entirely illusory.
The New
York Times reported Monday that many Americans will not
receive the promised relief check of $1,200, plus $500 for each child, until
August or September. As many as 10 million low-income, childless adults who are
eligible for the stimulus payment program may receive nothing because they have
not filed tax returns. Millions more, including undocumented workers,
prisoners, students and adult dependents are excluded.
As for the $250 billion expanded jobless benefit part of the
law, which is supposed to extend state benefits for 13 weeks and add $600 a
week in federal funds for up to four months, workers are finding it all but
impossible to apply. Multiple state unemployment websites have crashed under
the crush of millions of applicants, and scenes of hundreds of workers lining
up, in the midst of a pandemic lockdown, to apply in person are proliferating
around the country.
Trump pardons ruling class criminals
President Donald Trump issued 11 pardons or commutations of
sentence on Tuesday, choosing to expunge the lawbreaking records of billionaire
financier Michael Milken, the one-time “junk bond king,” and billionaire real
estate magnate Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., former owner of the San Francisco 49ers
professional football team.
He also pardoned former New York Police Commissioner Bernard
Kerik, convicted of tax fraud and perjury, and commuted the 14-year jail term
of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, impeached and then convicted on
multiple corruption counts, including attempting to sell the Senate seat of
Barack Obama after Obama’s election to the presidency in 2008. Blagojevich, a
Democratic congressman before his election as governor, was released from
prison immediately on Trump’s orders, and declared himself a “Trumpocrat” in
the 2020 election.
Trump’s actions in relation to Milken and De Bartolo are a clear
demonstration of class justice, in which billionaires are effectively above the
law. As one news report noted, there are only 600 billionaires in the United
States, very few of them face trial and conviction, let alone jail time, and
Trump has now pardoned three of them, including last year’s clemency for media
mogul Conrad Black—author of a fawning pro-Trump volume—who served nearly two
years in prison for fraud and embezzlement.
Milken was one of the most important actors in the
financialization of the US economy, devising “junk bonds”—high-risk,
high-return corporate securities that became a spearhead in the employer
offensive against the working class throughout the 1980s and beyond. Hedge
funds and private equity firms used junk bonds to finance leveraged buyouts of
companies and proceed to loot pension funds, slash wages and benefits, and
squeeze every penny of profit out of what frequently became empty shells.
In the process, Milken himself amassed a huge fortune, including
a then unprecedented income of $550 million in 1987, while running a unit of
Drexel Burnham Lambert, a second-tier Wall Street firm that rocketed to prominence
in that decade. These operations were portrayed in such books as Den of Thieves and
films like Wall Street,
whose lead character, Gordon Gekko, was modeled after Milken’s partner-in-crime
Ivan Boesky.
After pleading guilty to 10 counts of financial fraud in 1990,
Milken served less than two years at a “Club Fed” luxury prison for the rich.
He paid fines and restitution of $600 million, which barely made a dent in his
multi-billion-dollar fortune. Trump’s pardon message paid tribute to Milken’s endowment
of various medical charities and cancer research and hailed him as “one of
America’s greatest financiers.”
De Bartolo was charged with paying a $400,000 bribe in $100
bills to Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, a Democrat, in return for state
government approval of a riverboat gambling project in which he had invested.
Edwards went to prison, while De Bartolo served no time but had to transfer
ownership of the 49ers to his sister. His nephew now runs the franchise. The
National Football League inducted De Bartolo into its Hall of Fame despite the
criminal conviction.
Blagojevich and Kerik are lesser figures in terms of wealth, but
gained national prominence in capitalist politics. Blagojevich was recorded in
a wiretap soliciting bribes and campaign contributions from the Service
Employees union and various wealthy individuals interested in his selection of
a successor to Obama in the US Senate.
Kerik is a longtime crony of Rudy Giuliani, now Trump’s personal
lawyer and political fixer. He was the driver and bodyguard for Giuliani during
his campaign for mayor of New York City, and Giuliani eventually elevated him
to police commissioner, where he was widely rumored to be receiving bribes from
organized crime families.
Despite this atrocious reputation, Kerik was actually chosen by
President George W. Bush to head the Department of Homeland Security, but had
to withdraw after corruption allegations surfaced. In 2009 he pled guilty to
charges of tax fraud and lying to investigators and spent three-and-a-half
years in federal prison.
All four men had high-level sponsors lobbying Trump personally
for clemency, including billionaires Sheldon Adelson, Tom Barrack, Ron Burkle,
Nelson Peltz, Richard LeFrak and Rupert Murdoch for Milken, Giuliani and
convicted war criminal Eddie Gallagher for Kerik, and Trump son-in-law Jared
Kushner for Blagojevich. The De Bartolo empire is based in northeast Ohio,
giving Trump an electoral incentive for that pardon.
The remaining seven pardons and commutations include a
Republican political operative, David Safavian, convicted in the Jack Abramoff
corruption scandal, a Cuban-American businesswoman from south Florida convicted
in a massive Medicare fraud scheme, and two other corporate executives
convicted on fraud and tax charges (one a significant Trump campaign donor).
Trump also pardoned three minority women convicted of nonviolent
or white collar crimes, to serve as window dressing, but no minority men. As
one account of the pardons and commutations noted, Trump has pardoned only one
African American man in more than three years in office, and the beneficiary of
that pardon had been dead for 72 years when it was issued: the late boxer Jack
Johnson, whose conviction by an all-white jury took place more than a century
ago.
The timing of the pardon and commutation decisions was
significant from a number of standpoints. They had clearly been delayed until
after Trump himself was acquitted in the Senate trial on impeachment charges
brought by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, in order to
avoid giving his political enemies additional ammunition.
And they come as part of a broader political offensive launched
by Trump in the wake of impeachment, including firing or removing officials who
testified in the impeachment inquiry or opposed his actions in delaying US
military aid to Ukraine, the action that sparked his impeachment, and demanding
that charges be quashed against his own associates arising from the
investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The pardons were issued only two days before Judge Amy Berman
Jackson is to impose a sentence on Roger Stone, a longtime Trump crony, for
lying to Congress and the FBI and witness intimidation in a case that stems
from the investigation by Mueller into alleged Russian interference in the 2016
US presidential election.
After federal prosecutors last week recommended a jail sentence
of seven to nine years for Stone, Attorney General William Barr intervened and
overturned the recommendation, proposing instead that the judge take a far more
lenient approach.
All four prosecutors resigned from the case in protest of Barr’s
action, and a petition calling for Barr’s resignation and opposing White House
interference in the handling of federal criminal cases has been signed by more
than 2,500 former federal prosecutors and other former officials of the
Department of Justice.
Trump has attacked Judge Jackson on twitter several times in the
past two weeks, leading the chief judge of the District of Columbia District
Court, Beryl Howell, to issue a statement declaring that “Public criticism or
pressure is not a factor” in judges’ rulings or sentencing decisions. The
Federal Judges Association, an informal lobby of more than 1,000 jurists,
scheduled an emergency meeting for Wednesday, although the meeting was called
off at the last minute without explanation.
Judge Jackson is to sentence Stone today, but she seemed to bow
to White House pressure by declaring in advance that she would not give effect
to any sentence until the motion by Stone’s attorneys for a new trial had been
adjudicated. In other words, Stone will not go to prison soon, if at all.
In the meantime, Trump’s pardons have sent a clear message that
he is prepared to dole out similar treatment to Stone, former campaign manager
Paul Manafort, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, and other Trump allies who have pled
guilty to crimes like fraud and perjury.
In response to media attacks and even a mild critical remark
from Attorney General Barr, who said Trump’s tweets were making his job more
difficult, Trump has renewed his declarations that he is “the chief law
enforcement officer of the country,” with unlimited power to intervene in the
criminal justice system as he pleases.
In the wake of the impeachment debacle for the Democrats, Trump
is asserting quasi-dictatorial powers, defying any effort to set limits on the
power of the executive branch.
Trump Exempts Fortune 500’s Visa Workers from Immigration Curb
6:34
President Donald Trump has exempted the Fortune 500’s international labor supply from his order for a temporary immigration shutdown.
“This order will only apply to individuals seeking a permanent residency,” Trump said in an April 21 press conference at the White House. He said:
It would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off by the virus to be replaced with new immigrant labor flown in from abroad. We must first take care of the American worker — take care of the American worker. This pause will be in effect for 60 days, after which the need for any extension or modification will be evaluated by myself and a group of people, based on economic conditions at the time.…[It] will not apply to those entering on a temporary basis. As we move forward, we’ll examine what additional immigration-related measures should be put in place to protect U.S. workers. We want to protect our U.S. workers and I think as we move forward, we will become more and more protective of them … The last thing we want to do is take American workers’ jobs.
Thee white-collar reporters did not ask Trump why he exempted the corporate visa workers from taking jobs away from other white-collar Americans. One reporter, however, asked him if he is using the coronavirus epidemic to fulfill a campaign promise to reduce legal immigration.
“I want our citizens to get jobs — I don’t want them to have competition,” Trump responded, adding that the policy document is being drafted for signature, likely on Wednesday.
“The decision not to block guest worker programs — for now — is a concession to the backlash from business groups who assailed the White House on Tuesday,” reported a New York Times article.
“President Donald Trump’s new executive order banning immigration to the United States will apply narrowly to those seeking permanent immigration status, a senior administration official said on Tuesday,” said a Reuters report. The report added, “Other workers such as those on so-called H1-B visas would be covered in a separate action, the official said.”
The rollback of the expected curbs on visa programs will be a huge disappointment to the many American graduates who say they have been pushed out of Fortune 500 jobs and careers by the alliance of U.S. investors, managers, and foreign visa workers.
Many advocates for American graduates & workers cheered when Trump announced his temporary immigration shutdown.
Business & investors, of course, oppose any shutdown of their foreign-graduate pipeline. #H1B bit.ly/3cDouJ0
So Trump will come under increasing pressure during the 2020 campaign to fulfill his 2016 promise to curb the H-1B visa. That pressure will come from millions of swing-voting graduates who see good jobs disappearing all around them — and see the major companies employing roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers.
In fact, his promise of the 60-day review is his invite to millions of swing-voting American graduates to rally against the visa worker programs during the 2020 presidential election.
The college graduate protest will be spiked by the continued economic turmoil and the routine inflow of foreign visa workers. For example, Trump’s federal government is on track to allow U.S. companies to import 85,000 new H-1B workers during the next several weeks.
Fortune 550 companies, smaller companies, and universities keep a population of roughly 1.5 million visa workers in U.S. jobs, and they also use those workers to transfer many additional jobs to corporate allies in India and other countries.
The NYT article did not include any detail about the draft directive, which may split the difference between business demands and the public’s support for a shutdown of immigration and of many visa worker programs.
But the article included comments from advocates for the nation’s powerful and wealthy technology companies.
Business groups had exploded in anger on Tuesday at the threat of losing their access to foreign labor .…“This is both a political act to demagogue and distract from his awful handling of the Covid-19 crisis and lack of testing,” said Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, a technology group that advocates for immigration, “and it is also a policy effort by hardliners to use this crisis to enact their awful, decades-old wish list to radically slash immigration.”…Jason Oxman, president of the Information Technology Industry Council, a tech industry trade group, said in a statement earlier on Tuesday that “the United States will not benefit from shutting down legal immigration.”
The members of Oxman’s group include Accenture, Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and PWC. Many of these Fortune 500 companies sideline American graduates to hire foreign visa workers via programs such as the H-1B and Occupational Practical Training program.
The ITI group also includes some of the Indian-run outsourcing companies that import many visa workers from India. The Indian-run companies include Cognizant and Tata Consultancy Services. Indian-run companies supply visa workers to many banks, insurance companies, utilities, auto manufacturers, and many other companies.
Oxman’s April 21 statement said:
Some of the most recognizable and dynamic American technology companies were started by immigrants, and today’s immigrants to the U.S. are valuable members of the U.S. technology industry workforce … the United States will not benefit from shutting down legal immigration. Tech workers – whether from the United States or another country – are playing an essential role in America’s response to COVID-19. They will be vital to the U.S. economic recovery and must remain part of the workforce. We urge President Trump not to endanger the country’s economic recovery by closing its economy to the rest of the world.
Trump's migration suspension will protect wages, esp. for blacks & Latinos, says WH press secretary.
That might mean easy action against the abuse of B-1 visitor-not-worker visas.
But there's far, far more corp.-$$$$ in the college-grad #H1B H-1B visas. bit.ly/2yvytkX
Todd Schulte’s FWD.us group was created by West Coast investors, including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, to help pass the 2013 “Gang of Eight” wage-cutting amnesty bill.
Many polls show that American voters like — and want to like — immigrants. But the polls also show that the public strongly objects to companies hiring foreign workers before American employees. For example, an August 2017 poll reported that 68 percent of Americans oppose companies’ use of H-1Bs to outsource U.S.-based jobs that could be held by Americans.
Administration officials are touting the draft policy as a boost to blue-collar wage earners but apparently not to white-collar graduates:
'Our middle class is dying': Tucker Carlson blames 'advisers' in Trump orbit for 'tidal wave' of immigration
Fox News host Tucker Carlson ripped some within President Trump's "orbit" for attempting to place corporate interests ahead of American workers' welfare during the coronavirus pandemic.
On his Tuesday night show, Carlson critiqued Trump advisers, who he alleges crafted a temporary suspension of immigration without addressing key concerns of the working class.
"The president is worried about preserving American jobs," Carlson said. "Unfortunately, and this seems to be the key, some in his orbit are not as concerned. Their main worry is making donors happy. And if there's one thing that donors love always, it's cheap employees. Yes, our middle class is dying at a faster clip than ever before."
Carlson said the suspension doesn't address the hundreds of thousands of temporary and guest workers who vie with Americans for industrial and agricultural jobs.
The Fox News host claimed the suspension was written by out-of-touch staff members who are "more worried about what their friends think" of the immigration measures instead of protecting the jobs of citizens.
Carlson noted the suspension does not apply to a massive section of immigrants who fight with Americans for working-class jobs.
"The new moratorium on immigration will last for 60 days," Carlson said. "The ban will apply only to individuals seeking permanent residency into this country."
Carlson said Trump's ban, which could be extended after the two-month period ends, does not apply to hundreds of thousands of temporary and guest workers who vie with Americans for industrial and agricultural jobs.
"The purpose of this tidal wave of immigration has nothing to do with what advocates of immigration claim immigration is for," added Carlson. "These visas do not improve American society in any way. We have no moral obligation to give them. There is no mention of guest workers on the Statue of Liberty."
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” Karen McQuillan
TRUMP’S CRAP ON BORDERS AND HIS PRETEND WALL IS ONLY ONE MORE TRUMP HOAX!
Only a complete fool would believe that Trump is any more for American Legal workers than the Democrat Party for Billionaires and Banksters!
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“Trump Administration Betrays Low-Skilled American Workers.”
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The latest ad from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) asks Trump to reject the mass illegal and legal immigration policies supported by Wall Street, corporate executives, and most specifically, the GOP mega-donor Koch brothers.
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Efforts by the big business lobby, Chamber of Commerce, Koch brothers, and George W. Bush Center include increasing employment-based legal immigration that would likely crush the historic wage gains that Trump has delivered for America’s blue collar and working class citizens.
Watch–Trump: Immigration Pause Will Not Apply to H-2A Visa Workers
2:29
President Trump revealed on Tuesday that his executive order pausing most legal immigration in the midst of the Chinese coronavirus crisis will not keep farmers from fast-tracking foreign workers into the country.
During his daily press briefing, Trump said the upcoming executive order to pause immigration to the U.S. will exempt foreign workers arriving through the H-2A visa program that delivers an endless flow of cheap labor to farmers.
“The farmers will not be affected,” Trump said.
Trump said his administration is actually making the process easier for farmers to more quickly get H-2A foreign visa workers into the U.S. — referring to the State and Agriculture Departments’ orders to waive visa requirements and allow visa-holders to stay in the country for more than three years.
“No, the farmers will not be affected by this at all,” Trump said. “If anything, we’re going to make it easier, and we’re doing a process for those workers to come in to go to the farm where they’ve been for a long time.”
Trump said a pause on immigration is necessary, though, to make sure at least 22 million unemployed Americans are not forced to compete against cheaper, foreign workers for U.S. jobs.
“I want our citizens to get jobs. I don’t want them to have competition,” Trump said. “I want the American worker and our American citizens to be able to get jobs. I don’t want them to compete right now.”
The H-2A program allows American farms to import a limitless number of foreign workers and pay them below-average U.S. wages. American farms do not wholly rely on H-2A foreign visa workers to fill agricultural jobs, as the foreign workers make up only about ten percent of the total U.S. crop farm workforce. Last year, U.S. farmers hired roughly 250,000 H-2A foreign visa workers.
In 2017, H-2A foreign visa workers picking crops were paid about two percent less than their American counterparts. Likewise, foreign visa workers operating agricultural equipment were paid 23 percent less than the national average U.S. wage. The largest wage discrepancy comes with H-2A foreign visa workers who take jobs as first-line supervisors for farming and fishing. They are paid about 95 percent less than their American counterparts.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
The Chinese Virus that has knocked 23 percent out of the stock market and boosted unemployment claims by 16 million in a month still hasn’t inspired Congress or President Trump to call for an immigration moratorium. The jobless numbers have even awakened Conservatism Inc.’s Charlie Kirk—he’s called for an end to work visas, a position many Americans share. Yet however nationalist Congressional Republicans sound in denouncing China for inflicting the deadly pathogen on the world, not one has suggested closing the borders to protect American jobs and health. It amounts to a catastrophic and ominous failure of leadership.
That failure reached its peak in the virus relief package, which blocked Pentagon money for building a border wall but provided $350 million in “refugee” aid. Only one Republican, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, objected.
How bad is the virus for the economy and the unemployed? When an immigration booster like Kirk is worried, you know it’s trouble. The Turning Point USA founder, a favorite target for nationalist mockery during the “Groyper Wars,” has suddenly offered surprisingly cogent ideas. Tops among them: an immigration moratorium:.
“We need a total moratorium on ALL visas until employment levels go back to pre-pandemic levels—put our citizens first!” he tweeted on April 3.
He repeated the message last week.
This is now the toughest job market in American history.Pause ALL visas until we’re back to full employment.Put US citizens FIRST! [Links added]
“There’s a ruling class in this country that doesn't represent this generation and it’s indefensible,” Kirk correctly said in a video attached to that tweet.
Even more significantly, the USA Today/Ipsos survey just found 80 percent support for tough immigration measures.
About 8 in 10 support drastic steps on immigration: imposing mandatory quarantines for people who have traveled to any other country and temporarily stopping immigration from all other countries. Seven in 10 want to ground all international flights. Almost half, by 49%-34%, want to ground all domestic flights.[Exclusive: In four devastating weeks, Americans' fears of the coronavirus have exploded, by Susan Page, USA Today, April 13].
That’s a powerful America First message. So why hasn’t any ambitious Republican tossed the idea into the Capitol’s hopper?
The answer: Timid leaders.
Of course, the idea would go nowhere in the Democrat-controlled House, but that doesn’t mean Gaetz, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, or another ambitious immigration patriot shouldn’t propose it.
My candidate to carry the GOP’s lance and banderole is Rep. Steve King, who has been remarkably quiet since losing his committee assignments last year over a fake news smear. Although the Iowan lacks the power and political capital to advance a bill, he could at least propose it and hope a colleague tries moving it.
So why no action in the Senate?
Because the upper chamber contains not a single Jeff Sessions or Kris Kobach whose chief focus is immigration. A few senators raise the occasional battle cry against open borders, but when the fighting starts, they slip away. Even Tom Cotton, David Perdue, and Josh Hawley, three GOP reliables who reintroduced the RAISE Act that would cut legal immigration in half, don’t lead on the issue.
Granted, Hawley, Cotton, and other GOP lawmakers want to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. and punish China. But that, it seems, is as far as they’re willing to go.
Widely seen as presidential timber, Hawley is eager to lead on bold legislation that attacks our dependency on China and Big Tech’s power. His plan to combat the China virus with far more government intervention in the economy and stiff penalties on China has, of course, discomfited our ruling-class elites [Josh Hawley sets up potential clash in GOP with coronavirus push, by Burgess Everett, Politico, April 6, 2020].
So why is he ignoring the virus-immigration angle?
My guess: Having mastered inviting favorable coverage in D.C.’s media fishbowl, Hawley thinks the connection will tarnish his brand. Many Main Stream Media profiles of the senator tout him as the “future of the GOP” and a challenge to the party’s free market orthodoxy [Josh Hawley’s Mission to Remake the GOP, by Emma Green, The Atlantic, November 24, 2019]. That won’t last if he links the pandemic to Open Borders in general or China in particular.
Cotton is too focused on hawkish neoconservative foreign policy to become the Senate’s premier immigration patriot. Establishmentarian Perdue is a weak sister on cheap foreign labor.
Then there’s Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who would prefer to ignore immigration altogether. He’s Business First, not America First. Taxes, the economy, and judicial appointments are his main concerns—the latter with some justification given the power of the open-borders Kritarchy that has attempted to usurp the president’s authority on immigration.
All this is why McConnell doesn’t want Kris Kobach in the Senate. He wants loyal toadies, not uncontrollable immigration patriots [GOP fears loss of Senate as Democrats handed opportunity in Kansas, by David M. Drucker, Washington Examiner, January 07, 2020].
And one more thing. McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, another ruling-class elitist, is a Chinese immigrant.
But neither the Treason Lobby’s Control of the House nor GOP weakness in the Senate means immigration patriots should give up. Several years ago, my predecessor as Washington Watcher analyzed why Republicans hadn’t taken up an immigration moratorium in response to the 2008-9 Great Recession. The primary reason: The conservative grassroots didn’t demand it, so Republicans felt no pressure to adopt it. In contrast, remember what killed the Bush-McCain-Kennedy amnesty in 2007? An uprising of Middle America.
But times have changed. The hoi polloi now have an ally with a megaphone just as loud as that of the MSM-Treason Lobby combine. Fox News talker Tucker Carlson regularly blasts open borders, as does his colleague, Laura Ingraham. Even Rush Limbaugh, the longtime and most successful propagandist for Conservatism, Inc., talks about the dangers of mass immigration.
And now immigration patriots have Charlie Kirk on their side.
But aside from a moratorium, a bold GOP lawmaker—again, a Gaetz, Gosar, or King—might propose plenty of ideas:
- End legal Chinese immigration
- End the admission of Chinese students to American universities
- Stop China’s purchase of blue chip American companies ; and
- Full funding for a border wall.
Note that, unlike Republicans, Democrats don’t hesitate to pushing their immigration agenda at every opportunity, as the WuFlu relief bill showed. Now, they’re trying to halt deportations, release illegals from detention facilities, and even send them free money [Democrats Introduce Bill Giving Coronavirus Relief To Illegal Aliens, by Jason Hopkins, The Daily Caller, April 3, 2020].
It’s time that Republicans answer in kind. And if even Charlie Kirk gets it, maybe the Congressional GOP will too.
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