I detest Donald Trump, but if Ted Cruz should falter in the presidential race Trump will have my vote for one reason, and one reason only: Cruz and Trump are the only two candidates who I believe will act to stop the tsunami of illegal aliens pouring across our Southern border.
Illegal immigration isn’t the most important issue in the presidential campaign. As far as I’m concerned it’s the only issue; everything else pales in comparison. Without borders we cease to be a nation. America’s citizenry wants a wall and we want it now. The elites don’t understand this, and that’s why they don’t understand the appeal of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
I have a core belief that the sole purpose of a nation is to serve its citizens. Each and every decision that is made by our government should be made on the basis of whether it will help or hurt the average citizen. Tolerating illegal immigration may help the elites, but it does not help average folks.
I happen to support legal immigration, and lots of it. I just support immigration that is in the national interest. And that’s not what we have today. Our current system rewards poorly educated criminals who enter the country illegally and punishes highly educated, law-abiding achievers who wait their turn.
Immigrants, both legal and illegal, are burdening our welfare system. In a recent year, 72 percent of legal immigrant households with children used welfare versus 52 percent of native-born households. The cherry on top of this toxic sundae is that illegal immigrant households with children had an 89 percent welfare participation rate. We can clean up our welfare rolls merely by deporting all of our illegal aliens.
Each person who enters the labor pool has the effect of slightly harming those who operate at the same skill level; and those who hire them are winners. Obviously the effect of one person can’t be measured, but the effect of hundreds of thousands or millions certainly can. When rich farmers scream that their crops are “rotting in the fields” and a bunch of peasants need to be allowed into the country to pick their fruit, low-skilled workers lose and the rich farmers win. We’re often told that illegal immigrants do jobs that “Americans won’t do.” It’s not true. There are no jobs that "Americans won't do;" they are jobs that Americans won’t do at the price being offered.
Many “stoop labor” agricultural jobs now pay about $15 per hour; they are hard work. This wage could be raised to $50 an hour with remarkably little effect on grocery prices, and Americans would show up in droves to do the work. Some of them might have to be trained to be good workers, but that’s what we do for our fellow citizens.
Does anybody ever stop to think about how much it costs society to provide a bunch of rich fruit farmers with cheap labor? Communities have to provide their illegal alien children with free schooling at $8-12,000 per child. Hospitals have to treat their families for free, which often runs into thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars every year. It’s as if society is having to pay a direct subsidy of $20-50,000 per employee to the fat-cat farmers. I’d rather give up fruit!
Of course, after a couple of years the fruit pickers go on to other work, leaving crops once again to rot in the field, leading to demands for more peasants from south of the border, and even higher taxes on homeowners struggling to support their schools. Wash, rinse, repeat.
If people who hire unskilled labor win with illegal immigration – whether it be those who hire fruit pickers, nannies, construction workers, or whatever – who loses? Obviously it’s the poorest of our citizens who work at these types of jobs, since low-skilled wages remain depressed.
What happens when we restrict immigration to only those who are believed to be highly productive. For example, what would happen if we imported a million doctors? I think we all know the incomes of doctors would go down as doctors lowered their fees to attract patients. Who wins? Low- and middle-income people who have to seek medical care and pay less for it. Who loses? Rich doctors.
I’m not trying to pick on doctors, who have actually taken a beating with a bunch of ridiculous and costly federal regulations recently. I’m just trying to make a point. When large numbers of highly intelligent, highly productive, high-income people emigrate to the United States, it causes our rich people to become a little poorer and our poor people to become a little richer – it makes us a more egalitarian society. And in the long term the increased productivity and equality raises the standard of living and incomes for everyone. Everyone gets rich together!
Liberals often talk about producing equality through ruinous taxation of the rich and redistribution to the poor. This merely destroys our nation’s wealth. We can use our immigration policy to increase equality amongst our citizenry merely by limiting immigration to those who are likely to earn a well-above-average income – those who are highly skilled or highly educated. The increased competition will bring the incomes of the rich down a little, at least temporarily, while enriching our poorest citizens by lowering their costs and increasing the demand for their services. In the end we will become a much wealthier, more egalitarian society in which all citizens are respected and valued.
What America needs is a grand bargain. We need to not be afraid to embrace a few so-called "liberal" ideas (which I might expound on at some future time), such as a citizenship dividend of $700 to $1,000 a month to all adults after 21 years of citizenship (essentially eliminating welfare), and a government-funded medical voucher for every citizen that can be used either for guaranteed enrollment in Medicaid (not Medicare!) or for traditional, private insurance, much as it existed before Obamacare. We can afford these things, so long as we don’t allow any more poor people into the country and throw out those who are here illegally.
The world has 7 billion people, and if we start handing out free money they all will try to be here; in fact, it's happening right now. For us to have a generous society that is designed to help all of our citizens we must first enshrine citizenship as something special. We have to build fences; we have to be willing to sentence people who are in our country illegally to jail and then deport them; and we have to end birthright citizenship.
America’s elites, both Republican and Democrat, simply can’t believe that America’s working and lower middle class has figured out that as a group they are being screwed over by both parties, who seem to exist solely to serve the big banks, poverty pimps, illegal aliens, hedge fund managers, and various loud-mouthed fringe groups. The one group they do not care a whit about is the common, struggling American citizen.
Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are the only two candidates who understand that America exists to serve its citizens, who coincidentally happen to be the voters. These citizens want a wall, and they will vote for one of these men to get it.
The elites may not get it, but I’ve got some news for them: the price of fruit-pickers and nannies just went up.
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