Boehner: Amnesty After GOP Primary Filing Deadlines

Breibart.com ^ | December 4, 2013 | Matthew Boyle

[upchuck]

I have employed over the same time period hundreds of Mexican laborers and craftsmen.

You point would be made much stronger if you can also state, "and not one of them has been an illegal alien. I check!"

Well?

[Cen-Tejas]

.........LOL, Windflier, I’m not sure what “a pox on them” (and by extention I suppose “me”) means but it does not sound like it should be part of an intelligent FR discussion about an important issue. This seems to be a departure from your normally well thought out posts.

Windflier, I am not and never have been a Union employer. Clearly, that is the direction you are coming from and the argument you want to have. Well, not tonight.

But, on non union construction jobs around Texas, there are not enough “general laborers” available. That is a fact. Many jobs just SIT due to this labor shortage. So, setting aside the Union vs Non Union argument for a moment, and I know that is not what you want to do, Texas is in a boom condition generally and construction in particular and we need more skilled and unskilled labor. That is a fact. But, we don’t need or want AMNESTY! Or, a path to citizenship, or coyotes or the crime that comes with all of the above to say nothing of the terrorists slithering across the border.

Finally, Texas is a right to work state and that is something that clearly irks all you union guys. But, there is absolutely nothing a lowly developer like myself can do about undoing Right to Work in Texas. Sorry.

Notwithstanding any of the foregoing, I appreciate your comment and respect your viewpoint.

[Cen-Tejas]

Leni, this might surprise you but I agree with most everything you said down to where you said I was “crowing” about my hiring practices on a conservative website. Are you suggesting a new rule on FR to ban anyone that doesn’t agree with you and Windflier on the Guest Worker/Amnesty ISSUES and does not hold a union card? Or, are you suggesting that on FR the majority of comments we see are pro union and pro right to work?

If you had read a little more carefully than you obviously did you would possibly have understood that my comments were about AMNESTY...and nothing else...........NOT the Union Labor Scale vs the Non Union Labor Scale or Right to Work States vs Non Right to work States or the efficacy of either policy.

You and Windflier sound like you come from Right to Work states and are card carrying Union guys. Fine, I was a member of a Union once myself, no problem. But, I live in Texas which is a Non Right to Work State and therefore I have had to deal with that FACT for 40 years in all my projects.

Finally, the argument that if we would just simply unionize all workers all problems will go away is beyond simplistic and therefore not a discussion many will agree to even conduct, particularly in Texas.

Notwithstanding any of the foregoing, I appreciated your comments and respect your viewpoints.

[Cen-Tejas]

Carry_Okie, no sir, if I had my way, many things would be different than they are and illegal workers getting any support from the taxpayer would certainly be one of them.

In a guest worker program, properly ran and administered (an oxymoron I admit), this situation you complain of and that agree with would stop.

Thanks for you comment. It was a good one.

[Windflier]

I am not and never have been a Union employer. Clearly, that is the direction you are coming from and the argument you want to have.

Why do you assume that I have anything to do with a labor union? That sounds like some sort of attempt to deflect or disarm my comments. For the record, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a union employer. And I never indicated to you that I had.

No, I'm just a guy who chose to go into construction at a young age, and have worked in that field for the last 33 years. 16 years ago, my wife and I started our own small construction business, and it thrived for a number of years until we began to be underbid by our unscrupulous competitors who were employing illegal alien labor.

While I bore the added expenses of being 100% in compliance with state and federal laws regarding taxes, unemployment, worker's comp, etcetera, other operators were paying illegals half of what my guys were making, while also paying nothing to the government in the way of employer contributions. That allowed them to price their jobs at a level that I couldn't touch.

I assure you, unions had absolutely nothing to do with the market distortions that were disrupting mine, and fellow contractors' businesses. Eventually, the drop in sales forced many of my brothers to leave the business. Some went over to the dark side and began hiring illegals themselves. And some of us just hung in there, letting our guys go one by one, until they were all gone.

Let me tell you something. We now make roughly 50% less for the same work, as we did in 2005. Why is that? It's because the presence of illegal alien labor in our industry has decimated wages across the boards. If a contractor can pay his guys peanuts to get the job done, he can charge a whole lot less for his projects.

Try competing with guys like that if you're playing by the rules, and employ a crew of American workers who you pay at levels commensurate with their skills and output. You can't. The market won't support it while there's access to labor that costs half as much.

But I don't think I really need to explain all this to you. You know exactly what I'm talking about. If you've been in business for any length of time, you know full well what illegal labor has done to small contracting businesses, and the Americans who formerly worked for them.

Now let me ask you a question. Were your hundreds of "hard working guys" legal to work in this country? Are you sure? Did you use E-Verify to check them out?

What about American workers? Did you ever hire any of them? If not, why not? Is it because they never showed up to apply? Now, why do you think that is?

[Still Thinking]

Only problem is if amnesty is a tar baby. Do they want us to go near it because most Americans have been cornswaggled into being for it?

I seriously doubt that. I'd say at least half the public, and I believe more, oppose amnesty.

I revert to my basic maxim: Do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may. Put this fact (of Boehner’s plan) in the hopper with everything else and run primary candidates who are against amnesty, among other things of course.

Exactly. Do the right thing and you can't help but be at least as well off and maybe better off than if you hadn't. Gen. Blather makes the point that there might not be enough viable challengers to go around, and I hadn't considered that, but if not, count up the ones you have and "target" (channeling my inner Palin there) the worst RINO's and the ones holding critical positions (and the ones that would succeed deposed RINO's in those positions if they're RINO's as well). Get as far down that list as you can with whatever resources you have and you'll know that you did all you could. Boner obviously would make that list, no matter how few bullet candidates you had.

[Still Thinking]

I don’t mind if he “fixes” Osamacare, so long as he means “fix” like you “fix” a dog you don’t want spawning.

[PubliusMM]

Well, he ran unopposed in 2012, and took 99.2% of the vote, with the remaining 0.8% going to James Condit Jr. (write-in).
In 2010, in a four-way race, he took 65.6% of the vote.
I don’t see anything currently posted regarding a challenger for the upcoming election, but I’ll keep an eye on it. This is not my congressional district, but it’s worth keeping an eye on it.

[Still Thinking]

The Dems will probably do like they did with Juan “Lettuce” McPantsStain and run the mayor of Podunkton or something to make sure Boner wins. Dems can’t afford to lose Boner unless they were going to win back the entire House, which they won’t.

[Carry_Okie]

In a guest worker program, properly ran and administered (an oxymoron I admit), this situation you complain of and that agree with would stop.

You are in the construction business. That means you need occasional day-laborers, one day at a time. How do you think such a "properly ran and administered" program would do such verification whey you pay in cash?

[CPT Clay]

Really?

[firebrand]

You may be right about the number of Americans favoring amnesty. The polls seem to show most people in favor, but they could be rigged, just as they are in elections.

[buckeye49]

There are two challengers out there right now.

[Cen-Tejas]

Windflier, my first comment in response to your lengthy response is directed at your last paragraph where you in quire of me “What about American Workers? Did you ever hire any of them? Answer: From 1971 to around 2009 I hired (myself and through sub contractors on my jobs) many thousands of American citizens. That’s a fact. No doubt too, some of the people that worked for some of my sub contractors were illegal. E verify was not even a pipe dream back then. I am 99% sure I never directly hired an illegal worker on any of my jobs.

Now, let me give you, and any other readers, some perspective so that this discussion can hopefully progress some. I came home from 2 years active duty in May 71. I was 23. By 1978, I was building my first apartment project at 29. I owned half the project and was the General Contractor. Oh, and there was zero wealth in my family back then. The project was successful and we built many more, in that same general ownership/construction modality.

The first sub on the jobs were always the excavation man. Whether or not his operators were “legal”, I confess to not knowing. I do know he was the low bidder and available immediately which, back then, was all that mattered. After site work and foundations, 90% of workers on my jobs were obviously legal (Caucasians) and spoke English but in those days this was not a hot issue like it is today, as it should be. So much for some “perspective”.

To your points, or most of them: I assumed you were “probably” a union guy by the comments you made. Since you were not and are not, that puts us on the same page, or close.

Regarding the unscrupulous, illegal hiring of non citizens, I went out of business and lost a half million dollars in a sitework company for the exact same identical reasons you cite! So, once again we find ourselves on the same page and moving up on the over-arching point that you did not catch in my original post.

RE my “hard working guys” statement. They just are. But, when I say that, I am speaking of Mexican General Laborers performing semi skilled work out in the hot sun and, again, I don’t know where u come from but down here in Texas these hardy Mexican Workers are the only ones that will do that work. I know and/or have not met one fellow developer/contractor that disagrees with that statement.

Now, predictably, I know some freeper is going to say “bs” you don’t pay them enough. If you did, a white guy (American Citizen) would do the work. LOL, I call bs back on that, in advance! In emergencies, I have paid $25.00 to Caucasians to swing a sledge, I have yet to find one that would do it more than an hour or so before throwing it on the ground and walking off. Sometimes, I had to do it! So, paying a guy that swings a sledge hammer at a stake in the ground 25-35 an hour is nothing short of an “hallucination”. The market will not permit it! AND, Caucasians cannot and will not do it all day long, day after day, week after week in the hot Texas Sun....for any amount of money! Thus, in an ironic way, we all owe that hardy Mexican worker out there swinging that sledge, because without somebody swinging it all day long every day, there is no sitework and there are no foundations and no job for any of us.

Any sub, like Windflier for instance, who is paying these type wages (25-35$) to an “American Citizen” to swing a sledge hammer will be out of business from the START in Texas, a right to work state that is extremely HOT in the summer!

I am not even going to argue that point any more with anybody. You cannot blithely dismiss “right to work” and the competitive environment it creates (in the construction industry in Texas) while claiming to advance intelligent argument points.

So, what to do? Well, some freepers will say “throw em all out of the country”. That feels good to say but will NEVER happen short of installing a conservative dictator!

So, AGAIN, what’s the answer? The only answer I’ve heard of is a “Guest Worker” program and I am not going to rehash (state again) what the advantages of one are because I want to get to your MAIN point (Windflier’s).

In a properly structured and monitored Guest Worker (hereafter referred to as just GW) program, the MAIN complaint you have is, “the presence of illegal alien labor in our industry has decimated wages across the board”.

AGREED! (and, I am only commenting on Texas)

Again, the question though is “what to do about it” that is doable, not a fantasy! I say “guest worker” because it will immediately move the players around on the table by: 1. the number of guest workers will be far less than the cash out of someone’s pocket scenarios we see going on around a sub’s pick up today. This is because in a properly enforced and set up GW program the EMPLOYER will have to have proper paperwork on each worker and the worker himself will have to provide some of it. If he can’t, and MANY won’t, he will get no work, because the Employer, (you and me) does not want to go to jail. (2) The GW’s will have to start paying WITH-HOLDING INCLUDING SS and FICA, another leveler of competition as it will drive their wages UP! (3) A GW program could require a GW to take a basic one day English class so MINIMUM communication could go on between the employer and the employee without an interpreter in the middle that sometimes intentionally lies for personal gain which again artificially inflates costs.

So, there is no question that a GW program would level the playing field SOME and help do what you want to do which is “HIRE MORE “AMERICAN’ WORKERS AND FEWER ‘NON CITIZENS’. Part of the problem in the past is guys like you and me did not get involved. This time around, that should change and hell, let’s make it (an enforcement regimen) tough!

Now, this gets me to the question I will be attacked on. Can the “existing” federal government do this? Probably not since they cannot build a website. So, we must get to a situation this coming November where we retire 90% of the lifelong professional ruling class in DC. Short of a live fire revolution, that is the only answer. Some guys and gals with brains, will hire some federal bureaucrats with brains instead of gender or sexual preference.

In the meantime Windflier, I feel from reading what you say that you are more of a Guest Worker supporter than you think.

Thanks. Nice discussion!

[Cen-Tejas]

Good question and your right! In fact, I would say “many times” over the decades emergency situations pop up and to incentivize guys to work all night long (on Christmas Eve one time) in the cold rain we paid cash..............usually double, sometimes triple.

So, logically, the “one day at a time” scenarios are just case by case and circumstances usually dictate that paperwork kinda goes out the window.

Thanks. Very good point!

[Carry_Okie]

So, what to do? Well, some freepers will say “throw em all out of the country”. That feels good to say but will NEVER happen short of installing a conservative dictator!

Nonsense. There is an easy way to do it, and it's the same means as successfully extirpated a good many animal species: A bounty system. Bounties work. Place a bounty on the head of any illegal with stiff penalties for false imprisonment, harassment, or detention. The illegals would self-deport in months.

Oh, and as to "hard work," I do work that would be illegal in California even for illegal aliens: hand weeding for months on end, distinguishing 110 exotic species from native annuals, many in their juvenile stages.

I am not even going to argue that point any more with anybody. You cannot blithely dismiss “right to work” and the competitive environment it creates (in the construction industry in Texas) while claiming to advance intelligent argument points.

You are making a "peas and apples" argument. You are posing competition between those willing to hire illegals against a straw man of one who would not do so under those competitive forces. Were the illegals out, the playing field would be even despite that you had to pay those higher wages to get that work done. Hence, yours is a false argument.

So, AGAIN, what’s the answer? The only answer I’ve heard of is a “Guest Worker” program and I am not going to rehash (state again) what the advantages of one are because I want to get to your MAIN point (Windflier’s).

You have already tacitly admitted that such a system is impossible to enforce in a day-labor market.

Can the “existing” federal government do this?

The problem would be our Marxist Federal judges, who should be impeached. Electing a conservative government could get that done, but for the threat of amnesty. This means you.

[Windflier]

So, your entire argument is that Caucasians can’t and won’t swing a sledge hammer all day in the Texas sun for any amount of money, therefore developers like you are forced to use illegal labor to get the job done. Uh-huh.

First of all, site work is only the first level of invasion by illegal workers. Their infiltration into the skilled building trades goes far beyond that, and you know it. I defy you to walk through a project phase by phase, and show me any phase where American workers predominate. You can’t. Foreign born workers now predominate in every sector of the trades, from pounding stakes to setting doors and windows.

You would have us believe that American men never built a thing in Texas, which is a provable falsehood. I’ve been in the trades long enough in the southwestern U.S. to know better. I’ve witnessed the changes in the building trades with my own eyes. Up until the early 80s, nearly every phase of construction on projects in this country was performed exclusively by American men.

American men built the southwest. They built the infrastructure, from the water and electrical systems, to the houses, commercial buildings and skyscrapers. They built the dams, the bridges, and the deep water ports. They built the airports, schools, and government buildings, and every U.S. military base. And not just in Texas, but across the whole country.

Do you really have the gall to sit there and try to convince me that American men are suddenly incapable of doing what they’ve done for over two centuries? It’s a damnable lie, and unbecoming of a Freeper.

No. American men have been PUSHED out of the construction trades for all the reasons I’ve previously stated. The good jobs they once held have been given over to a colonizing force of cheap illegal laborers who don’t give two shits about this country or you.

You can dance around this issue all you want with justification after justification, but understand that professional tradesmen like myself see right through it. The almighty buck is the ONLY reason you and other developers have given a whole industry away to Mexico.

[PubliusMM]

I didn’t see them filed as candidates, yet. I’ll check again.

[Cen-Tejas]

Ok Windflier, you have had several rants while propounding the same points over and over except you have ratcheted things up and diluted your arguments by now name calling (liar).

So, Sir, lets say you are right, IF YOU HAD THE POWER, what would you do to wipe away this problem and make everything right for you and people who see things like you?

I assume # 1 would be to get rid of all us nasty ole greedy developers. Take it from there.

[Windflier]

you have had several rants while propounding the same points over and over except you have ratcheted things up and diluted your arguments by now name calling (liar).

Seriously? You based your entire line of argument to me upon something that is a provable falsehood, and now you're upset that I had the temerity to call it what it is?

IF YOU HAD THE POWER, what would you do to wipe away this problem and make everything right for you and people who see things like you?

Don't try to make this about my opinion, because it's not. It's not about how I see things. It's about the truth of the distortions in the marketplace as they actually exist.

The federal government has been soft on illegal immigration for decades now. They have allowed tens of millions of foreigners to penetrate our borders and set up house and home in this country, and have done next to nothing to stop the invasion, or to deport those who are here in violation of our immigration laws.

ALL of these people need jobs, housing, medical care, etcetera, to survive. In order to obtain what they need, they've offered their services to businesses of all types for wages that undercut what native citizens of this country have traditionally made in those jobs. Why? Because no business owner is going to risk putting them to work unless he can see some serious profit in doing so.

And when the federal government is turning a blind eye to illegal hiring practices, the risk becomes nil for any business owner who wants to flaunt the rules.

What's to lose? Simply glad hand and write checks to the campaigns of politicians who go to Washington and turn a blind eye to illegal hiring, and life is wonderful. Even better, they'll even push for amnesty on your industry's behalf. What's not to like about that deal?

Look, this stuff is elementary. It's marketplace 101. Average citizens see this going on all around them, and are smart enough to figure it out. It's why 70% of Americans are dead set against giving any form of amnesty to illegals. They, their friends, and their families, have all been displaced by these people.

So what would I do, if I had the power to change it? I'd do what most Freepers have been demanding for years.

I'd start off by implementing a couple of the things you mentioned in your prior posts, like an Israeli style border fence with armed patrols.
A guest worker program too, as long as it's preceded by wholesale deportations of those who are already here illegally.
Full implementation of the E-Verify system, with mandatory usage in hiring by EVERY business.
A complete shut down of social services for illegals.
An 'English Only' requirement in the conduct of business and government affairs.
And I would impose the maximum civil and criminal penalties on every business that hired illegal workers.

With 40 million Americans out of work, it's insane that we're not already doing these things. Unemployed Americans need to eat too, and where does the money come from to feed them? Out of everyone else's pocket, of course.

This is sheer insanity. It's unsustainable, and must stop, or we're going to implode the whole system. It's already done a tremendous amount of damage to my own business, and to those of tens of thousands of others.