View From The Left Coast

Two Associated Press articles recently put the immigration issue into focus: they both had to do with current immigration laws that are simply not being enforced. The first was about an internal Border Patrol report that told of a 19 year-old entrepreneur caught three times in two months smuggling illegal aliens into the country in a stolen car. In each case he was released without charges. The report went on to say that only 6 percent of the 289 smugglers caught by the border patrol were actually prosecuted.

This comes after reports that only three prosecutions of employers hiring illegal aliens occurred last year. At least 11 million of them are working here, and only three of their employers were prosecuted.

The other story focused on the Mexicans waiting to cross the border, who told the reporter it doesn’t matter if you put up more fences and patrols, we’ll find a way to get in.

It’s pretty clear at this point “our government� has no intention of bothering rich people getting richer hiring illegal workers cheaper than US citizens. As always, when you want to know how an issue will be decided (for example Iraq, election reform, tax law), simply follow the money. The trick is to make it LOOK like you’re trying to do something (like putting 3,000 reservists on the border and/or building an itty bitty fence), but making damn sure the people who pay you millions, like Mr. Abramoff, get what they pay for.

The recent spate of demonstrations across the country (and I sure would like to know who organized and funded them) were designed to focus on the mostly honest, hard-working people who are here in violation of the law (that makes them “illegal aliens�, not simply “undocumented workers.�) They have to deal with coyotes, La Migra, dishonest criminal employers, and the horrible, corrupt country they’re fleeing. There’s no way you’re going to keep them out when they are promised jobs, health care, education, and a better way of life. Democrats and Republicans know that if they weren’t offered jobs and transportation (which will only happen when laws are enforced and illegal employers go to jail), they won’t come. Then wages for those who live here legally, whose parents went through a lot of time, trouble, and suffering to obey the law, will rise, and their taxes will. . .rise less fast.

Ultimately, the only issue is a personal one: do we respond to this with despair and cynicism, and say “Aw, to hell with it. We can’t fix this system, so let’s take drugs and watch television!,� or do we say “Let’s struggle against impossible odds and take back our country.�

For starters, Democrats, try writing in "Marcy Winograd" (google her and see) rather than Feinstein or those other two dufusses.

Posted by Walt Frazer at 04:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Congress has just gone through another round of “reform�, and, as always, they found nothing worth fixing. It’s very much like the corporations, with their boards of directors who are CEO’s from other companies, who decide to pay THEIR CEO’s 15 million a year so they will get the same treatment. Since everybody from Tom Delay to Hillary Clinton took money from Jack Abramoff, even though he and they have broken laws, they don’t see anything wrong with that.

Apparently neither do you.

They don’t see anything wrong with CEO’s like Kenny-Boy Lay making 40 or 50 million a year (which works out to around $180,000 each DAY) for being crooks, stealing from their employees, setting up elaborate frauds that shut off the power to entire states, holding week-long shredding parties to get rid of incriminating evidence, and sneaking into the White House to tell the good folks there how to create an “energy policy.� The average total compensation for CEO’s of 367 leading corporations was $11.8 million in 2004.

They don’t see anything wrong with letting another 11 million people illegally (yes, my dears, it’s against our laws to let people come into this country without asking, and it’s against our laws for people to give them jobs as nannies, sheetrock hangers, pallet-makers, and lettuce-pickers).

As long as they get paid. And every nickel they collect, from Abramoff, from Exxon, from the AFL-CIO pays off for the givers, or they wouldn’t keep doing it. Every nickel given to the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Campaign to Reelect Randy Cunningham is given with the expectation, based on experience, that they’ll get something in return. There is ALWAYS a quid pro quo.

And because that’s the case, even though you pay them, give them healthcare benefits you can only dream of, pay them incredible retirement benefits even if they’re in prison, they aren’t working for you. De-facto President Dick Cheney, already worth upwards of $30 million, reported income of $8.8 million last year, and is due for a $1.9 million refund. We only pay him $200,000, plus serious benefits: chump change.

As for Congress: in 2003 there were 413 retired members, making an average of $47,000 per year (plus bennies). Taxpayers pay around $20 million a year to them. More to their healthcare providers.

Of course we don’t HAVE to do this. We could cut the umbilicus from the public trough to the private trough by ELIMINATING campaign spending and ELIMINATING gifts to public officials. There's nothing in the Bible or the Constitution that says they have a right to accept bribes.

But until we do, don’t expect them to bite the hand that feeds them.

Posted by Walt Frazer at 05:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)