Posted on 09/13/2004 5:24:42 AM PDT by OESY
...Last Tuesday was primary day in Arizona and Nevada, and we think the results deserve a little more national publicity because they revealed some useful political lessons. To wit: immigration doesn't win elections but the tax issue does.
Two Arizona incumbents, Republicans Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake, faced primary challenges resulting from their position on immigration. Both back sensible reform of our immigration system. Both support President Bush's call for a guest-worker program to match willing foreign workers with U.S. employers and draw illegal aliens out of the dangerous underground economy.
And as a result of these views, Messrs. Kolbe and Flake both found themselves in primary contests against opponents who were fielded and supported by national restrictionist outfits like the Federation for American Immigration Reform and ProjectUSA. Yet both conservative incumbents prevailed easily -- Mr. Kolbe with 57% of the vote and Mr. Flake with 59%. The message is that anti-immigrant populism may look good in some polls but it doesn't work come Election Day, even on the front lines where illegals add to the burden on local law enforcement and social services. Some Republicans who listen to Fox's Bill O'Reilly or his imitator, CNN's Lou Dobbs, have been led to believe that immigration is a winning issue, but as with trade protectionism the votes never materialize.
Meanwhile, the results in Nevada highlight an issue well worth pursuing: taxes. Voters went to the polls to decide 34 primary election contests for the state Legislature, where Republicans currently run the Senate and Democrats control the Assembly. A budget battle last year, which resulted in a $833 million tax hike, led to several primary challenges. Two veteran Republican Senators, Ray Rawson and Ann O'Connell, were defeated. Both supported the tax increase.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Lou Dobbs is sickening with his outsourcing BS and Bill O'Reilly is an ego maniac obsessed with himself. Neither man has been blessed with a brain!!! As for immigration they both don't have a clue!!!
I think we have a huge ticking time bomb type of problem here. You don't?
I'm sure they'd rather be doing something else with theit time & money - like preparing for the general election.
And one of these days the issue WILL cost an incumbant his of her seat.
I agree with you this is a problem. I just can't stand those idiots Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly. For goodness sakes, take a look around you. Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, etc. would collapse if it were not for Mexican/Hispanic labor that builds the houses, maintains the landscape, works the service industries. You ought to blame the Democrat Party for keeping Blacks chained in economic slavery and instilling the terrible work ethic the majority of American Blacks have. Compare that to the hard work ethic of Black Haitians, etc. This is a very complicated problem that has many facets. A black and white solution is not the best answer for the long run. However, illegal immigration must be stopped!!!
ping
What is wrong with you? The illegal Mexicans are the ones who have these jobs because the corrupt employers hire them under the table for less than minimum wage, pay no taxes on them and offer no benefits. They'd rather hire these people than U.S. citizens who they'd have to deal with fairly and legally.
His name is David Dreier :)
Note to the illogical WSJ. DO THE MATH
You can’t have unrestricted illegal immigration (cheep labor) and at the same time lower taxes. All the areas with the heaviest populations of illegal aliens also pay for the most public services.
Nor can you have homeland security. I guess it will take a smoking hole that use to be Wall Street before the Journal will break from the utopian idea of open borders.
Why do you limit the terrible work ethic to blacks?
The American worker, in general, is infected with this malaise!
As a play on John F. Kennedy's words:
The American worker needs to ask not what their employer can do for them, but what they can do for their employer.
Labor unions and governmental regulations have created a vacuum which is being filled with immigrants, both legal and illegal.
Employers love them because they show up for work every day, they don't take thirty minute breaks in the morning and afternoon, and they don't mind working past five o'clock.
How long has it been since American workers would do that?
American workers are spoiled rotten!
If they would concentrate on working harder to make their employer more profit so they could benefit from higher wages instead of griping about the color of the toliet paper in the bathrooms, they could begin to regain the predominance in those industries which have been taken over by immigrants.
The flood of immigrants must be stopped, but, at the same time, the American workers must be willing to take up the slack that they themselves have created.
Employers look at one thing to be able to stay in business:
Bottom line profit.
They are in a squeeze between minimum wage laws, safety regulations, local, state and federal taxes, a plethora of governmental regulations that takes a staff of CPAs to manage, and a work force which attempts to dictate to them when they will work and how they will work.
The survival of many employers in the service industries and the construction industries depend on immigrant labor.
We saw the results of the pressure applied to politicians by those thousands of employers when the subject of immigration was off the table at the RNC.
Actually you are right. The American work ethic has been suffering for some time. The reason I zeroed in on American Blacks is because they have been convinced by their leaders and the Democrat Party that they are not able to climb the ladder of opportunity in the USA because of racism, and their only salvation is to have the Democrats and their leaders take care of them cradle to grave. The majority of Blacks buy this crap, and in today's world it is the primary reason why they do not assimilate or advance as other later arrived immigrant groups do. They are not all they can be, and it makes me mad that they have been here in this country for so long and have yet to take full advantage of its freedom and opportunities. I admit there is still racism alive and well, but there will always be some level of racism, and most Americans of all stripes are fair and willing to give all kinds of people a fair shot. I only wish Black folk would wake up. They have long ago surrendered their economic freedom to the Democrat Party, and now as Hispanics blaze past them as the largest minority in the USA, they are slowly losing their political power also. I think it is time for them to wise up and see which way the apples are growing on the tree!!!
There is still racism in America, just as there is gender discrimination, but it simply means that a greater effort is required, not that it is impossible to achieve.
I don't understand the, "Let's sit on the porch and swat flys and let Big Brother take care of us", attitude.
It is self defeating, not only for themselves but for future generations.
Black Americans are not the only group to have this attitude, but I believe the percentage of the whole is greater.
All you say makes it okay to hire illegals who break the law and spit in the face of everyone who thinks about stealling and robbing banks and doesn't do it? Worried about the coyote business, are you?
This is exactly the same as the drug trade - as long as the demand is there, someone will fill the need.
In neither case does reality force maintaining the status quo.
Legal immigration must be severely limited, and illegal immigration must be eliminated - period!
Big government must get out of our lives, and the American worker must adopt the work ethic of their fathers and grandfathers.
I think the chances of any of this happening are from zero to nil.
Oh please enlighten us and tell us how mass migration of people is the way to utopia. Then I'll call you a fool with all the witlessness of a cultist who gulped the kool-aid and then went in for seconds.
I never said a word about backing or supporting a mass migration legal or otherwise. I just can't stand Lou Dobbs and his constant BS about outsourcing. You should remember, however, that this great country was founded by and prospered under great droves of immigrants of all stripes.
Pardon me for being tactless. Dobbs has a point and because he runs counter to the prevailing hysteria and absurd policies he is more important than a thousand shills that appear to be experts.
Bill O'Reilly harps on immigration for one reason only, it is the one issue that can be considered non-partisan, or populist as O'Reilly likes to label himself.
You are pardoned. But, I respectfully disagree. Lou Dobbs knows absolutely nothing about about outsourcing and its effects. He does not understand that with a world economy being driven by rising consumerism, jobs are going to float on a global basis. It is up to the USA to stay current with and adapt to the changing times. Crying in your beer (Mr. Dobbs is a major league whiner), and then doing nothing about it is the worst crime of all.
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