Immigration Reform Has
Merit?
"This [Obama's Executive Order legalizing millions of law-dodging
border crossers] is focused on people who are already in the
economy today, who are contributing mightily but are basically operating in the shadows."-Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, UCLA.
Chances are very good you have never heard of Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda. I know I hadn't. But his
views on the world dovetail with the Progressives' ideology and he supported the President's
Executive Order that could affect up to 11 million law breakers unabashedly. He is teaching this
at a major U.S. university.
Hinojosa-Ojeda's (H-O) position is this order will give about a $7 billion boost to the economy,
create $2.5 billion in new taxes for the country and generate about 160,000 new jobs. The
'findings' are similar to what was experienced in Reagan's 1986 amnesty plan.
What H-O and his ilk miss is the times have changed. This isn't 1986 but 2014. The economy
isn't picking up steam but staggering along using the unproven results from a massive change in
Federal Reserve policy as a crutch. Nobody is certain how the crutch will hold up when that
particular bill must be dealt with.
The fly in the ointment is the Progressives have not yet come to terms with a very salient point
on how business operates. Like Hinojosa-Ojeda and Obama, they see business as a cash cow for
the thousands of government programs enacted under the Great Society mandates to "have equal
results.".
Businesses are there to make a profit for the owner(s), pure and simple. But the burden of having
"shadow" employees suddenly put on the books is not one the Liberals have even contemplated
fully.
Where is this $6.8 billion in additional wages to come from if not the earnings of the various
business ventures? What impact will this have on those business owner(s) decisions in the
future? Also, was the cost of some of these businesses failing due to the increase costs associated
now with the illegals working for them, calculated into the "job creation" number?
Those who have never run a private business--like H-O who is an associate professor at UCLA's
Cesar Chavez Center for Interdisciplinary Instruction in Chicana and Chicano Studies or Obama
himself--don't count that cost. It is merely another form of redistribution of wealth for them.
Obama's main selling point, lapped up by fellow ideologists, is this makes America "better." Sort
of like Jonathan Gruber's "I'd rather have a healthcare law than not." The stated goal is only a
step. The ultimate goal is many steps down the line but will reduce America to a common misery
standard enjoyed by every other nation.
One of Obama's hopes echoed by (H-O) was this action would attract high-skilled immigrant
workers who would lead and establish new businesses. Why? So they can get gouged by the
government complicated tax and compliance regulations? So they could work like mules to keep
the bureaucracy in place without earning more than they netted before the Order? It is ludicrous
that the main reason cited by H-O for the anticipated influx of 'highly skilled immigrant
workers' had anything to do lax enforcement of laws. Getting into the U.S. illegally is easy.
Getting back out of the clutches of the government once legitimatized is an entirely different
matter--just ask any legal citizen who is at the end of the line for every everything government
doles out.
That's where the disconnect between the elite Progressives and the rest of us is clearly seen. They
figure they can get something from the deal that will benefit them--more votes in the next
election.
Why did Obama wait? If this is what he really was aiming for, why wait until the opposition
controlled both sections of Congress?
Maximum effect. It made a bigger splash this way. Made the image he has of himself better in
his mind. He talks compromise and "reaching across the aisle"; sucker punches the people he is
allegedly working with, then he appeals to the "stupid" voters and claims, in essence, "It is not
me. Others have taken unilateral action. I knew the Conservative was going to hit me so I hit him
back first. He forced me to do this because he did nothing for years."
Even if the action miraculously does everything those like HO claim, the impact will be
microscopic improvement in the economy, at best. However, if even one of the rebuttal items
outlined happen, the Order will have disastrous, sweeping, irreversible effects on an
already struggling economy.
The President took a major gamble in order to secure a modest gain and to set the base for
further gains later--a truly dogmatic Saul Alinsky point. A struggling middle class will feel the
effects first.
How long before this "Silent Majority", with the lessons of the Sons of Liberty etched on their
hearts, decide they have had enough?
"I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of
man."--Thomas Jefferson