Posted on 05/21/2006 5:59:08 PM PDT by quidnunc
Medicare and Social Security will become insolvent sooner than estimated earlier, Medicare's trustees said in their annual report, issued May 1.
Mexico has a presidential election on July 2. The leading candidates are Felipe Calderon, a conservative, and Andres Lopez Obrador, a leftist who has the backing of Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
What does this have to do with President Bush's plan for comprehensive immigration reform? Maybe lots.
Medicare and Social Security are going broke chiefly because there aren't enough workers paying into the systems to support beneficiaries. Unless millions of new workers can be found to pay the payroll tax, the retirement of the baby boom generation will bust both programs.
An Obrador victory likely would be a greater blow to our national security than the Ayatollah Khomeini's ouster of the shah of Iran has proven to be. Imagine the harm a Marxist dictator controlling a nation of 108 million people which shares a 2,000-mile border with us can do. President Bush has. You should.
The No. 1 source of revenue for Mexico is remittances from Mexicans working in the United States. Threatening those remittances helps Mr. Obrador. Regularizing them helps Mr. Calderon.
We should not institute a major domestic program primarily to aid a foreign ally. But a guest-worker program can benefit both our economy and our security.
Supporters of a guest-worker program say there are jobs too few Americans are willing to do at anything close to prevailing wages. Opponents says businessmen are just looking for cheap labor to exploit.
There is truth in both positions, but the weight of evidence supports the need for immigrant labor, at least for seasonal agricultural industries.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
On immigration, Bush should give Conservatives a break.
Thanks Joe, but no thanks.
See tagline.
L
The Borders are totally out of control.
It is up to President Bush to secure these borders just like the airports are secure after 9/11 !
I have an issue with Immigration and Congress in general.
Members of congress have shown us time and again that they are incapable of meaningful, focused action for the resolution of key issues in any ethical or intelligent way. You are well aware of the issues; immigration, energy, welfare, Social Security and Medicare, a tax system that is overly complicated and filled with inequities, and a budget that is grossly inflated with pork.
Immigration and naturalization issues are a good example of poor performance by Congress. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States, gives Congress and Congress alone, the power to establish the rules, laws, and procedures to straighten out immigration and naturalization issues. The laws that are on the books need to be enforced, and funding provided to support security of our country and its borders. It seems to me, and I think you will agree, that the will of the citizens of our country is fairly obvious, illegal marchers not withstanding. Yet all I see is vacillation, procrastination, and subterfuge in the political ways of our senators and representatives. No one seems willing to actually do something, anything—other than spend our money of course.
Energy, Medicare, Social Security, our tax system, pork politics, and welfare are among other major issues that need congressional action and resolution before they become an overwhelming weight on our resources and security. If lasting solutions are not found, we shall slowly but surely sink into a national peat bog, from which, it may take generations to recover.
How about scraping it then?
Then let Bush and the others come and tell us we need more legal immigration, and we will be open to action. However, just opening the gates and encourging illegal immigration is totally against American values.
These folks coming into FR here (kinda like uninvited aliens?) and changing stuff all around thinking it's their right to do so does tend to become annoying.
However W has said it's OK 'cuz it's all friendly like, so please don't be so upset. ;-)
Yeah, maybe one can, but that isn't what is being debated in the Senate. The Hagel-Martinez bill provides each alien that can meet its minimal requirements permanent residence in the U.S. These aren't temporary or guest workers, they are forever.
Conservatives can't elect national candidates without attracting a sizable percentage of the moderates, and lately conservative rhetoric has been off-putting in the extreme to fence-sitters.
The Big Picture: On immigration, conservatives need to give Bush a break
See my Reply #11 above.
"Medicare and Social Security are going broke chiefly because there aren't enough workers paying into the systems to support beneficiaries. Unless millions of new workers can be found to pay the payroll tax, the retirement of the baby boom generation will bust both programs."
What makes the Author think that adding more workers to pay into the system is going to solve the problem? All of these proposed payers will be payees down the line. Are we supposed to allow more illegals into the country to pay their benefits when they come due? I don't think this administration has thought this through, especially in light of the 50-49 defeat of the Ensign Bill which will allow illegals to reap the rewards of their crimes, and get amnesty for document forgery and fraud.
One of the Rats tenets for allowing the illegals to stay was that we're collecting taxes, and FICA, that will buoy up our system. Where's the benefit if they all become beneficiaries? It's a charade!
I don't give a whit what any moderate thinks. I am a conservative. A moderate is simply a liberal or a conservative without the courage of their convictions.
Good article.
Larry Kudlow was making the same points the other day.
Fence or no fence, what's all the fuss about?
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/larrykudlow/2006/05/18/197947.html
Amazingly, the Senate has passed another amendment to limit temporary workers to a mere 200,000 per-year, even though numerous studies say we need at least twice that amount. The Upper Chamber is also limiting the volume of skilled H1B workers, primarily engineers and scientists. These workers are crucial to American competitiveness, and if allowed into the country at much higher levels they would throw off more than enough tax revenue to finance public services for unskilled H2B immigrants.
Why legislators fail to understand the economics of this problem is beyond me.
Due to the demographic shift being caused by the baby boomers, the ratio of working-age persons in the U.S. to retirees aged 65 and over will drop like a stone from the current 4.7:1 ratio to 3.5:1 by 2030, and 2.6:1 by 2040. With the Social Security and Medicare trust funds going bankrupt, how will we manage with so few workers per retiree? Will we let our whole economy stagnate like France, Germany, Italy, or even Japan ? All of these countries suffer from shrinking workforces and top-heavy government taxation.
Well, the U.S. could maintain a 4:1 ratio of workers to retirees by admitting an additional 57.5 million workers over the next nineteen years, according to analyst William Kucewicz. This would result in an average annual population increase of less than 1 percent and a total of only 16.4 percent more than the 350 million projected by the Census Bureau for 2025.
"Conservatives can't elect national candidates without attracting a sizable percentage of the moderates, and lately conservative rhetoric has been off-putting in the extreme to fence-sitters."
==
The voice of reason.
Some so-called conservatives are actually advocating helping the Dems win -- now how conservatives is that?!
Bush doesn't appear to be attracting too many moderates, as evidenced by his abysmal approval ratings.
In the third Bush-Kerry debate, with the election on the line, Bush's stance on immigration was much harder than now. He wasn't saying anything about "adjustment of status", it was Kerry.
Bush and the RINO Senators are not trying to attract any moderate voters. They are carrying water for cheap labor business interests.
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