Strike Two?
The subject of illegal immigration has been all the rage for some time now and has been dominating presidential candidate interviews, speeches and debates almost as if there is an answer to be found somewhere in the how-to manual one receives upon taking that seat in the Oval Office. This has got me thinking about how our government can really help solve this dilemma.
Let me set the stage, and for the moment remove the group of folks who want to take up residence in the U.S. simply for its unbeatable welfare and free healthcare programs. The problem is we have business owners in search of a profit in need of workers. We have foreign-born persons seeking a paycheck making their way past the perverbial Ellis Island guard shack to provide them labor. The two come together and form a partnership by a wink and a nod, with one party agreeing to do work somebody needs done in exchange for cash and a promise not to hold them accountable for paying taxes (by deducting all those wonderful things you and I have taken from us by some payroll service before our hard earned dough reaches our bank accounts.) I think that's it in a nutshell.
Now, proponents of the recently defeated immigration bill have said, among other things, that "undocumented workers" perform jobs that most Americans won't, and deporting them will decimate our economy. I don't know the fact source of this argument but let's assume it has some validity even though statistics can be manipulated to prove or disprove just about anything (see Global Warming.) This must mean either a) some unemployed citizens or legal residents of this country believe there are unfilled jobs so objectionable they'd rather starve than perform them; b) these jobs are not paying enough for a citizen or legal resident to convince themself that its worth it to suffer through all the position has to offer, or c) there is a very large segment of our population who really don't want these jobs because they are more comfortable and happy taking freebies from the local food stamp distributor.
So if I am a business owner with an operation that requires some pretty nasty work in order to get my product to market and I can't find people to work for me, what do I do? If I can't find the labor, then I must close my doors and either find something else to sell or find somebody else for whom to work so I can continue to feed, clothe and shelter myself and my family. The government requires me to pay a certain minimum wage but even at that hourly rate, no one is pounding on my door with the classifieds in their hand begging for a chance to be all I need them to be.
One thing the government could do to help me is force me to pay my workers more. They could also force me to improve my working conditions so they weren't so offensive or dangerous. In either case, I would have to raise the price on my product in order to make the money necessary to operate and the profit I desire to maintain my lifestyle. I would then have to hope there were still enough buyers for my product, at the new price, to keep me ahead of where I was before the government stepped in to help. If I still can't make things work, I'm back to shutting my doors and seeking an income stream from someplace else so its worth a shot to give the government's plan a chance. After all, I'm the business owner and I don't want to be down in the hot, smelly shop but up in the air conditioned office on the phone wheelin' and dealin' my product all over town.
So I'm about to accept the aforementioned generousity of Uncle Sam until I remember those homeless shelters I drive past on my way to work each morning, where I see plenty of well-nourished people sitting on the sidewalk smoking cigarettes with no apparent destination for the day. They don't seem interested in putting on a pair of boots and work gloves and getting involved on the front end of the American way of life, no matter what the government might require me to pay them or how sanitary I keep the floors of my warehouse. Instead, these folks seem resigned to live the high life on the back end where the only day of the month that really matters is the one when the welfare check arrives.
And then a truckload of Mexicans fresh from a midnight border crossing show up at my door in need of a meal and a willingness to do what I ask of them in exchange for it.
How can our government really help me? Get those sidewalk sitters on their feet and into the workforce by taking away their subsidized cigarettes. True, its a bit more complicated than that, yet its really just that simple. We can talk about creating a 21st century group of Regulators to bring the criminal illegal immigrant element to justice at a later date (but if you need a teaser, the solution isn't all that different from dealing with the documented United States citizenry who simply don't want to play by the rules.)
Let me set the stage, and for the moment remove the group of folks who want to take up residence in the U.S. simply for its unbeatable welfare and free healthcare programs. The problem is we have business owners in search of a profit in need of workers. We have foreign-born persons seeking a paycheck making their way past the perverbial Ellis Island guard shack to provide them labor. The two come together and form a partnership by a wink and a nod, with one party agreeing to do work somebody needs done in exchange for cash and a promise not to hold them accountable for paying taxes (by deducting all those wonderful things you and I have taken from us by some payroll service before our hard earned dough reaches our bank accounts.) I think that's it in a nutshell.
Now, proponents of the recently defeated immigration bill have said, among other things, that "undocumented workers" perform jobs that most Americans won't, and deporting them will decimate our economy. I don't know the fact source of this argument but let's assume it has some validity even though statistics can be manipulated to prove or disprove just about anything (see Global Warming.) This must mean either a) some unemployed citizens or legal residents of this country believe there are unfilled jobs so objectionable they'd rather starve than perform them; b) these jobs are not paying enough for a citizen or legal resident to convince themself that its worth it to suffer through all the position has to offer, or c) there is a very large segment of our population who really don't want these jobs because they are more comfortable and happy taking freebies from the local food stamp distributor.
So if I am a business owner with an operation that requires some pretty nasty work in order to get my product to market and I can't find people to work for me, what do I do? If I can't find the labor, then I must close my doors and either find something else to sell or find somebody else for whom to work so I can continue to feed, clothe and shelter myself and my family. The government requires me to pay a certain minimum wage but even at that hourly rate, no one is pounding on my door with the classifieds in their hand begging for a chance to be all I need them to be.
One thing the government could do to help me is force me to pay my workers more. They could also force me to improve my working conditions so they weren't so offensive or dangerous. In either case, I would have to raise the price on my product in order to make the money necessary to operate and the profit I desire to maintain my lifestyle. I would then have to hope there were still enough buyers for my product, at the new price, to keep me ahead of where I was before the government stepped in to help. If I still can't make things work, I'm back to shutting my doors and seeking an income stream from someplace else so its worth a shot to give the government's plan a chance. After all, I'm the business owner and I don't want to be down in the hot, smelly shop but up in the air conditioned office on the phone wheelin' and dealin' my product all over town.
So I'm about to accept the aforementioned generousity of Uncle Sam until I remember those homeless shelters I drive past on my way to work each morning, where I see plenty of well-nourished people sitting on the sidewalk smoking cigarettes with no apparent destination for the day. They don't seem interested in putting on a pair of boots and work gloves and getting involved on the front end of the American way of life, no matter what the government might require me to pay them or how sanitary I keep the floors of my warehouse. Instead, these folks seem resigned to live the high life on the back end where the only day of the month that really matters is the one when the welfare check arrives.
And then a truckload of Mexicans fresh from a midnight border crossing show up at my door in need of a meal and a willingness to do what I ask of them in exchange for it.
How can our government really help me? Get those sidewalk sitters on their feet and into the workforce by taking away their subsidized cigarettes. True, its a bit more complicated than that, yet its really just that simple. We can talk about creating a 21st century group of Regulators to bring the criminal illegal immigrant element to justice at a later date (but if you need a teaser, the solution isn't all that different from dealing with the documented United States citizenry who simply don't want to play by the rules.)
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