economy

Looking for the path less travelled - where will true Republicans go?

Ira Mehlman explains the problems House Republicans are facing in Congress. Poor babies - is it so difficult to do what's right?

Read Mr. Mehlman's Townhall article and share it with your friends. Read more about Looking for the path less travelled - where will true Republicans go?

Special guest Susan Tully - FAIR National Field Director to speak

Alert date: 
December 5, 2013
Alert body: 

Don't miss the meeting this Saturday, December 7 at 2:00pm at the Best Western Mill Creek in across from Costco in Salem.

Click here for more information about the OFIR meeting.

Check out our post meeting photo gallery.

Today’s Grads Face Mounting Pressure From Foreign Tech Workers

Writing in the November 15 issue of ComputerWorld, Patrick Thibodeau reminds us of the plight of today’s college graduates who have obtained pricey degrees in technical fields, but have become burdened with tuition debt while trying to compete in a tight job market with the estimated 650,000 foreign workers already here under H-1B visas.

Things could get worse under the Senate immigration reform bill, which calls for increasing the current annual H-1B visa cap of 65,000 to about 180,000...

Ironically, with an anemic economy and a stubborn unemployment rate of 7 percent, the nation’s blue chip companies continue to lobby for more H-1B visas at a time when many are shedding headcount to cut costs.

Last quarter, Cisco laid off 4,000 people, bringing its two-year total layoffs to 12,000. HP just completed a plan announced in 2012 to cut 9,000 American jobs. Pharmaceutical giant Merck announced it will cut 8,500 more jobs, bringing the total number to 16,000...

Mass layoffs are typically justified in terms of restructuring to meet changing market needs, retooling for the next phase of innovation, or remaining competitive in an increasingly dynamic industry. But there’s more to it than this. These goals can be achieved in large part by replacing American workers with foreign workers who will do more for less and not complain about it.

In September, IBM agreed to settle a claim with the Justice Department that its job listings for almost four years expressed a preference for foreign workers with temporary visas over U.S. citizens. According to one HR manager at the company, the cost difference is too great for IBM not to look for foreign workers first. Many firms routinely violate the “citizens-first” hiring rule, but because they are hit with paltry fines if caught, it is easy to dismiss them as a cost of doing business.

Tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Cisco are among the many companies awash in cash, yet claim to need more foreign workers to stay on life support. If corporate profits are any measure, this line of reasoning falls squarely into the category of pure blather. The SP500 companies are sitting on a cash pile of $1.3 trillion.

Apple is widely hailed as the world leader in innovation. It has accumulated a cash hoard of $147 billion, which equates to nearly 10% of all corporate cash held by non-financial companies, according to Moody’s. Google pales in comparison with only $56 billion cash on hand and Facebook with $10 billion. All three companies are key players in petitioning Congress to lift the H-1B visa cap, as if they faced imminent extinction without a drip infusion of foreign workers.

The prospect of a big increase in H-1B visas could have serious consequences for American students and society...

Under the H-1B program, companies are allowed to pay foreign workers less than American citizens. When a company sees its competitors doing this, they have little choice but to follow suit to lower their own operating costs. This situation lowers wages across the board, making it difficult for American graduates to compete for jobs, pay down tuition loans, buy homes and raise families. With an uncertain job future in technical fields, high school students have good reason to think twice about pursuing expensive university degrees in preparation for jobs they are not likely to get.

In the ComputerWorld article, Karen Panetta, IEEE-USA Vice President for Communications and Public Awareness, and a professor of electrical engineering at Tufts University, warned that the cost of tuition in the U.S. is so unrealistically prohibitive that a class shift is underway. “The really wealthy are the only ones who can afford to send their kids to school,” she said. With her students owing $50,000 on average, “It’s the house you are not going to be able to buy for another 10 years.”

Also reported in ComputerWorld, Hal Salzman, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University, noted that the U.S. produces enough graduates to satisfy the demands of the labor market. But if the H-1B visa cap increase goes through, he sees a market that will be flooded with workers, with people under age 30 being especially hard hit by the increased job competition.

As the Wall Street Journal noted in its October 23 editorial, “With total employment at 144.3 million, for every three Americans over the age of 16 earning a paycheck there are two who aren’t even looking for a job. That’s an ugly portent for American prosperity.”

It’s hard to fathom how an annual influx of ever greater numbers of foreign workers will improve on this dire situation. It may very well accelerate the decline in workforce participation and increase dependence on the expanding array of government benefits as a substitute for work – both of which may trigger unforeseen consequences, including societal turbulence, followed by remedies we may prefer not to think about.

Read the full article. Read more about Today’s Grads Face Mounting Pressure From Foreign Tech Workers

Speaker Boehner: Immigration Reform Not Dead

Barely a week after he said the House will not go to conference with the 1,300 page Senate amnesty bill, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) renewed his commitment to passing “immigration reform,” a term commonly used to mean amnesty for the country’s 11-12 million illegal aliens.

“The only way to make sure immigration reform works this time is to address these complicated issues one step at a time,” said the Speaker at a press conference Thursday. (See Bloomberg Government Transcript, Nov. 21, 2013) “I think doing so will give the American people confidence that we're dealing with these issues in a thoughtful way and a deliberative way. So I’m hopeful we can make progress on this very important issue,” he continued. (Id.)

In fact, when asked whether immigration reform was dead, the Speaker replied, “Absolutely not. I have made clear, going back to the day after the last election in 2012 that it was time for Congress to deal with this issue. I believe that Congress needs to deal with this issue.” (See Bloomberg Government Transcript, Nov. 21, 2013)

Speaker Boehner also signaled that several House Republicans are continuing to work behind the scenes on a plan to pass immigration reform. “There are a lot of private conversations that are underway to try to figure out, how do we best move on a common-sense, step-by-step basis to address this very important issue…because it is a very important issue.” (Id.) Similarly, during his press conference the previous week, Boehner told reporters that House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) — whose committee has jurisdiction over the immigration issue — was working on “principles” for the chamber to follow in pursuing immigration reform in the coming year. (Roll Call, Nov. 13, 2013)

The Speaker’s recent comments make clear that amnesty and mass immigration proposals are far from “dead” in the House this coming year. To be sure, passing immigration bills piecemeal—rather than in one comprehensive bill such as in the Senate—still gives GOP leaders room to push for amnesty legislation or massive increases in foreign workers. In reality, depending on the path Leadership takes, the House approach, even if it is more transparent, could still have the same result as the Senate’s 1,000+ page bill.

Indeed, even House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has acknowledged that the House’s piecemeal bills are intended to fit together in a comprehensive manner. Last week in a heated exchange with Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) on the chamber floor Cantor said, “These [immigration bills] all fit into a larger puzzle,” he said. (See Congressional Record, Nov. 15, 2013, p.H7147)

Increasing the cause for concern, President Obama has given the GOP leaders his stamp of approval in taking this approach to achieving “comprehensive” immigration reform. “[House Republicans are] suspicious of comprehensive bills,” Obama said at a Wall Street Journal CEO summit. “But you know what? If they want to chop that thing up into five pieces, as long as all five pieces get done, I don't care what it looks like.” (AFP, Nov. 19, 2013) Read more about Speaker Boehner: Immigration Reform Not Dead

The George Soros-funded National Immigration Forum (NIF) is organizing a “fly-in” of what it calls conservatives from across the country aimed at lobbying House Republicans for an amnesty bill.

According to USA Today’s immigration beat writer Alan Gomez, NIF is planning to organize the fly in with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Partnership for a New American Economy.

“The fly-in is being organized not by conservative groups, but organizations that have focused on legalizing millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally and changing the legal immigration system to bring in more foreign workers,” Gomez wrote on Monday. He noted that the 300 activists for an immigration grand bargain were looking to make what he described as a “conservative pitch” for amnesty.

Gomez noted NIF’s Executive Director, Ali Noorani, who “has advocated for changes in immigration law to help legal and undocumented immigrants for three decades," claimed "the broad collection coming to Washington represents 'the conservative base of the Republican Party.'"

The event will take place on Oct. 28, coinciding with President Barack Obama’s and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s renewed push against House Speaker John Boehner for amnesty. Now that Obama, Reid, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are publicly pushing for amnesty after many mainstream media outlets declared it dead earlier this year, Soros’ groups are trying to make it appear as though conservatives support immigration legislation like the Senate-passed “Gang of Eight” bill. Ultimately, the left’s goal is to get the House to pass a series of piecemeal immigration bills and then combine them with the Senate bill in a conference committee.

Soros is heavily involved in funding the lobbying for amnesty. After Breitbart News exposed NIF for being Soros-funded while running a campaign to make it appear as though evangelicals support granting amnesty to illegal immigrants, Noorani admitted his group accepts funding from Soros. Noorani denies that the funding was being used for the Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT), a project that his group runs the operations of, but admits that millions of NIF’s dollars come from Soros and that about 10 percent of its budget this year comes from the leftwing billionaire.

Soros is also intimately connected to Facebook’s Zuckerberg’s FWD.us push for amnesty. Zuckerberg hired Soros’ former chief financial strategist Stanley Druckenmiller. Druckenmiller served as Soros’ chief strategist for more than a decade.

Mitt Romney's top 2012 campaign donor, Wall Street hedge fund manager Paul Singer, also funds NIF, as Breitbart News has reported. Read more about The George Soros-funded National Immigration Forum (NIF) is organizing a “fly-in” of what it calls conservatives from across the country aimed at lobbying House Republicans for an amnesty bill.

Obama plans immigration push after fiscal crisis ends

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that stalled immigration reform would be a top priority once the fiscal crisis has been resolved.

"Once that's done, you know, the day after, I'm going to be pushing to say, call a vote on immigration reform," he told the Los Angeles affiliate of Spanish-language television network Univision.

The president's domestic agenda has been sidetracked in his second term by one problem after another. As he coped with the revelation of domestic surveillance programs, chemical weapons in Syria, and a fiscal battle that has shut down the U.S. government and threatens a debt default, immigration has been relegated to the back burner.

But Obama, who won re-election with overwhelming Hispanic backing, had hoped to make reforms easing the plight of the 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally.

In June, the Senate passed an immigration overhaul, but House of Representatives Republicans are divided over the granting of legal status to those in the country illegally, a step many see as rewarding lawbreakers.

Although the president had sought comprehensive reform, he said last month he would be open to the House taking a piece-by-piece approach if that would get the job done.

Obama on Tuesday blamed House Speaker John Boehner for preventing immigration from coming up for a vote.

"We had a very strong Democratic and Republican vote in the Senate," he said. "The only thing right now that's holding it back is, again, Speaker Boehner not willing to call the bill on the floor of the House of Representatives."

Boehner said the sweeping Senate bill would not pass the House and has said the lower chamber would tackle the issue in smaller sections that would include stricter provisions on border protection


  Read more about Obama plans immigration push after fiscal crisis ends

Senator Wyden just popped up for Eugene Townhall meeting

Alert date: 
August 27, 2013
Alert body: 

Hurry and perhaps you can still make it:

August 27, 2013 12:00 PM

Eugene Hilton

66 E. 6th Street

Eugene, OR

 

 


 

Immigration bill hurts jobless


Oregon Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, joining the Gang of Eight in the passage of Senate Bill 744 (S.744), termed comprehensive immigration reform by some, amnesty by others, is unconscionable legislation considering the nation’s June seasonally adjusted number of 12.2 million unemployed citizens; 7.6 percent of the country’s civilian labor force.

According to a 2011 report, Pew Hispanic Center, Unauthorized Immigrant Population: National and State Trends, 2010 there are 8 million unauthorized workers in the U.S.

With so many unemployed American citizens looking for jobs and 8 million unauthorized workers currently holding the jobs many citizens will do, the U.S. Senate’s legislation at best seems oblivious to the plight of the unemployed in this country.

Two of the negative consequences of Senate Bill 744 are reveled in a June 2013 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report which indicates the legislation will cause unemployment to increase through 2020 and average wages to decline through 2025.

In July, an evaluation of the seasonally adjusted unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals unemployment rates in the states represented by the Gang of Eight plus their two Oregonian senatorial sidekicks: Oregon 7.9 percent; Arizona 8.0 percent; Colorado 7.0 percent; Florida 7.1 percent; Illinois 9.2 percent; New Jersey 8.7 percent; New York 7.5 percent; and South Carolina 8.1 percent. Five of the preceding eight states had higher unemployment numbers than the national average.

During the five week summer congressional recess, if Senators Merkley and Wyden choose to return to Oregon, the Senators should take a look at the number of unemployed in the state and unemployment numbers of the individual counties they choose visit across the state.

In Oregon there were 158,147 citizens unemployed in June; the state ranked 16th in 50 states for the percentage of unemployed.

Locally, Marion County’s 13,504 unemployed in June equated to 8.5 percent of the county’s work force; 8.5 percent of the state’s unemployed.

Including Marion, 24 of 36 Oregon counties in June had a higher unemployment rate than the national average of 7.6 percent; 11 of the counties had double-digit unemployment.

If SB 744 is passed by both sides of Congress and signed into law by the president, the addition of 110,000 unauthorized workers into the state’s civilian labor force will likely increase unemployment in Oregon; a setback for a state still mired and struggling to come out of a severe recession.

Hopefully for the unemployed of this state and across the country, the U.S. House of Representatives, which faces the nation’s voters every two years, will take a more incremental approach to any type of immigration reform and first pass stand alone legislation requiring a federally mandated national employment verification system like E-Verify which the federal government currently uses on all its new hires.

Oregon’s 158,147 unemployed U.S. citizens should contact during the congressional recess Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, along with Congressman Kurt Schrader, and tell the senators and congressman, Oregonians should never have to compete for scarce jobs now or in the future with persons illegal present in the country; furthermore, the U.S. Congress passing a standalone federally mandated E-Verify system is the best way to get those unemployed in the state and across the country back to full-time work.

(David Olen Cross of Salem writes on immigration issues. He can reached at docfnc@yahoo.com.) Read more about Immigration bill hurts jobless

House Democrat Luis Gutierrez: ‘More Than Enough’ GOP Votes To Pass Immigration Reform

In an interview released Friday by The Washington Post, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) suggested that there are “more than enough” GOP votes to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Gutierrez says that the “40 to 50” House Republicans who have expressed support for the new bill have done so quietly.

“They say, ‘Love to do the activity with you, I want to be able to vote for it, I really don’t need to draw attention to myself at this point,’ but we can count on it [their votes],” he explained.

The interview comes a few days after Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL.) and Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) expressed support for the measures – most notably a pathway to full citizenship — introduced by the proposed immigration reform.

“We’re a nation of immigrants, there’s no question about that. But we’re also a nation of laws. I think we have to honor both of those.” Webster said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel.

Webster and Schock are part of a 20-member group comprised of Republicans in the House who have confirmed their support for immigration reform – a group that includes bipartisan “Gang of 7” members Rep. Mario Diaz Balart (R-FL), Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), and Rep. John Carter (R-TX).

Other House Republicans in favor of immigration reform include Spencer Bachus (AL) who stated that without a pathway to citizenship, we would create “an underclass,” Darrell Issa, and Jeff Denham (CA), who said he believes the “Senate’s done a good job.”

Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) – who also supports immigration reform – said that winning Republican House members over to reform is possible: “Once you talk to them and explain that it’s a process, where [undocumented immigrants] can work for [citizenship], appreciate it and someday become citizens – just like my parents did – most members begin to understand.”

Gutierrez says that there are at least 195 confirmed House Democrats who support immigration reform, meaning the 22 confirmed GOP House members only need one more Republican vote to pass it.

Even so, a bill has not reached the House floor.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has enforced the Hastert Rule, a practice that involves only bringing a bill to a vote if there is majority support from the majority party’s members.

According to the Washington Post, House Republicans have now shifted their efforts to a more “piecemeal approach to immigration reform,” focusing more on bills related to border security.

On Thursday, Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) spoke out against Boehner and his fellow House Republicans who refuse to express support for immigration reform, and said that he is “frustrated” with the leadership.

Asked why the process is so dragged out, Denham confirmed what many observers have been thinking: “It probably has a lot more to do with politics than policy.” Read more about House Democrat Luis Gutierrez: ‘More Than Enough’ GOP Votes To Pass Immigration Reform

Eye-popping billboard zings famous Republican

A brand-new Georgia billboard proclaiming South Carolina’s alleged affinity for illegal aliens is raising eyebrows this week.

The sign, posted in Canton, Ga., declares: “South Carolina welcomes the undocumented. Sen. Lindsey Graham says his state has a labor shortage and wants more immigrants. For job tips, call his office at (864) 646-4090. Located in Pendleton, S.C. Only 2 hours from Atlanta!”

Sen. Graham, R-S.C., sits on a bipartisan committee that just passed a sweeping immigration-reform bill.

“These people must have been off the planet for the last five years,” said D.A. King, an immigration activist with the Dustin Inman Society who paid for the billboard. “We don’t need more workers. We need more jobs.”

King blasted the immigration bill, claiming illegal aliens will have an easier time getting jobs in the U.S., while making it more difficult for American citizens to find or hold onto employment.

“I think unemployed Georgians are already kicking and screaming,” King told WGCL-TV, the CBS affiliate in Atlanta.

“If you want an answer, go to the unemployment office and ask someone in line if they think adding 20 million more workers to the American workforce in the next several years is a good idea.”

The CBS station went to the Cobb-Cherokee Department of Labor office, and found that most people did not wish to comment on immigration, but did say they were desperate for work.

“With less income coming in, I have two kids to take care of, a husband and a household so it’ll be a struggle,” said Tangela Roach, who recently lost the second part-time job she had.

“I’m very concerned,” said Brooke Daugherty. “I’m a single parent. I’m very concerned to find a job immediately.”

King is hoping his billboard brings national attention to immigration reform and the negative impact it could have.

“Most of us want our borders enforced, our laws enforced and our jobs back,” King said.

King’s activist group was named for Dustin Inman, a 16-year-old American boy killed by an illegal alien in a traffic crash on Father’s Day weekend in 2000.

Dustin was on his way to a weekend of fishing in the North Georgia mountains with his parents.

Despite being in the U.S. illegally, the driver of the car that killed Dustin, Gonzalo Harrell-Gonzalez, was able to obtain a valid North Carolina driver’s license using his Mexican birth certificate and a Mexican Matricula Consular ID card.


Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/07/billboard-has-eye-popping-message-on-illegals/#97j4e6KUmqKZxMxD.99 Read more about Eye-popping billboard zings famous Republican

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