Posted on 12/14/2004 6:02:37 AM PST by OESY
...Think about the Kerik example: The man and his wife have two small kids.... A nanny offers that help, and she seems both nice enough and gets along with kids. Whether or not she's "legal" seems less important to most American parents than whether she's trustworthy and hard-working.
As for the nanny, she's traveled hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from home to make some money and get ahead. Her primary concern isn't running some Immigration Service gantlet but is to find a good family that pays decently and treats her well. Are we really supposed to believe that this kind of transaction between consenting adults jeopardizes our national security?
...Congress made some progress on the so-called nanny tax issue back in 1994, raising the threshold for complying and simplifying the process by which employers file taxes for their domestic help.
...Most Americans calculate the costs -- in time, legal advice and hassle -- of filling out all the forms, and they simply pay cash instead. The wage threshold should long ago have been raised far higher.
As for immigration law, the Bush Administration is headed down the right path with its guest-worker program. That proposal acknowledges that immigrants fill vital jobs, that movement across borders is inevitable as long as there is the lure of opportunity, and that merely adding more border guards won't stop migrants in any case.
The Bush plan would provide a legal means -- a three-year work visa -- for new immigrants to enter the country and take jobs Americans don't want. Some of them could even be nannies. That system would make it easier to track all foreigners, freeing up our homeland security forces to concentrate on terror threats, rather than rounding up the usual nanny suspects....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
If this doof had just hired Fran Drescher, he could have gotten two of his failings taken care of at once.
Taxes aside, it shows a complete disregard for the LAW and SECURITY at the most basic level - YOUR FAMILY!!
Seems pretty simple to me. It's illegal for the illegal immigrant to be in this country. It's illegal to hire illegal immigrants. It's illegal to not pay the Social Security taxes on household employees.
Kerik did all this illegal stuff. He should not be the head of the very department that enforces immigration laws. Period. We're well rid of him.
You're right! Pretty stupid huh?
Kerrick: "I think I'll hire a person who breaks the law to take care of my family....do dee doh doh doh....."
What a moron, I guess we couldn't count on someone who values money more than his family to care about the rest of the US.
Doesn't wash.
FMCDH(BITS)
This isn't about nannies. It's about an entire class of workers. The lowest paid workers in any given profession usually set the wages for a good many people in that profession...and this isn't just isolated to nannies.
"It's not just rich Republicans. It's middle class, upper middle class and rich Democrats and Republicans."
Yup. They're breaking the law and harming our immigration policies (such as they are). A few well-publicized jail sentences for the ones hiring all these illegals would soon put an end to it.
That's not going to happen, of course. These are the same folks who are writing nice big campaign contribution checks for both parties.
OTOH, some of them are seeing their jobs migrate overseas, too.
A lot of women who work as nannies are NOT third world peasants.
" fully aware of the needs and pitfalls of crisis communications and federal-state-local information-sharing"
The man was
a) too stupid to check the residency status of the nanny
b) knowningly violating federal law by employing an illegal alien.
c) knowningly violating federal tax law
...and you think he was the perfect candidate?
Where is this? You can't hire a skilled (likely illegal) solo carpenter for less than $100 per day in my experience. And even then, he won't have many tools or skills. I live in Dallas, by the way.
The point is the law is stupid. Furthermore consider how ridiculous the law is in this context. Illegals are not supposed to be here. Yet, no public entitity can deny their children education. No hospital can deny them care even the most expensive (like a transplant. Even if hospitals or schools know the persons are illegal, they are forbidden to squeal on them. BUT OH MY GOD, YOU BETTER NOT ALLOW THEM IN YOUR HOME TO WORK AS A NANNY!!! In fact, no one should employ them anywhere.
GIVE ME A F***ING BREAK. This approach is quite stupid and people who continually contend that this position lack any ability for critical analysis.
"GIVE ME A F***ING BREAK. This approach is quite stupid and people who continually contend that this position (is correc) lack any ability for critical analysis."
I put the Correction in parentheses before someone launches an attack on my grammar.
This is NYC. He hired the three guys for $250 for two days. One of the guys knew what he was doing and instructed the other two. The flooring they put down was one of those wooden, fits together like a puzzle deals. Now, assuming he's lying slightly to me and it wasn't $250, but $300, he still got a heck of a deal.
On the other hand,the point isn't in the specifics -- it's the more general fact that wages for a wide range of work will drop like a stone.
I have to agree with the writer on this one....
All I've read is the excerpt posted, but I agree that the wage threshold should be raised. The current threshold is $999 per year. If you pay an 'employee' $1,000 or more per year, then you're req'd to pay both SS & Unemployment. This affects citizen part-timers also. It's not just an illegal immigrant thing.
"Are we really supposed to believe that this kind of transaction between consenting adults jeopardizes our national security?"
So if I want to hire an Islamic suicide bomber to take out the crack house in my neighborhood it's ok?
That's absolutely true - Econ 101: supply responds to demand, thereby lowering prices and increasing demand. The essential issue is, can we stop the migration of people who are willing to drive the prices even lower?
I don't think we can control immigration - the history of mankind is one driven by migration. Certain cultures over the past 5,000 years, for whatever reasons, have created productive, wealth building societies which have then set off a stampede people to get in on the deal.
The US is just the last of a long line of succesful societies; the question is, can we absorb and assimilate, or are we doomed just as the empires of the past?
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