Democrats Just Don't Get It - (can they survive this blockbuster killer new exposé article?)

NEWSMAX.COM ^ | MAY 13, 2005 | JOAN SWIRSKY

[JasonC]

Unsound populist desires on immigration and trade include - end all trade with China or with all lower wage nations, regulate Walmart and other importers out of business, end all immigration legal or not, fully militarize all borders or just the Mexican border, crusade against "outsourcing", try to force multinationals to behave like US patriots, discourage both inward and outward foreign direct investment (the former is "invasion" and the second is "treason"), deliberate currency devaluation, higher tariffs and formal protection, end H-1B visas, force governments to "buy American", force other entities to "buy American" as a condition of federal funding or regulatory approvals, outlaw export of certain raw materials (e.g. Alaskan oil).

Sound policies that can be pursued on these topics are serious enforcement of existing border controls, INS reforms that remove legal red tape designed by activists to make it easy to stay in the country, enforcement of VISA overstay abuses, regulatory incentives to employers to cooperate with the INS instead of acting as scofflaws, promoting immigrant assimilation and citizenship by welfare and voting incentives and tighter controls on resident non-citizen access to them, promotion of English in schools, contract winning export promotion with countries running surpluses with us, voluntary export restraints, enforcement of existing anti-dumping statutes or the threat thereof to help the previous, promoting fair labor practices in major trading partner countries, insisting on reduction of trading partner protection measures, incentives for technology training and investment to improve US worker productivity or keep it high, etc. All directed at the long run maintenance of open trade and legal immigration, but not putting up with the present wild abuses deliberately sought by left activists and foreign countries and winked at by corporate types on the right.