BY RUSSELL TURNER
GO TO THE MONEY
Ever since I can remember I have known people that would commute to a job away from their home. One example that comes to mind is carpenters that could not find work locally, many of them would have families to support and their only option was to travel to an area that had some building projects under way. People will always migrate to an area where there is some money to be made. Even within our own country we have experienced mass migrations. During the great depression many of my ancestors took what little money they had to travel to California in hopes of finding a job to avoid starvation. Today our government is trying to convince us that the employment is getting better by the day, but I have some serious reservations about those claims. According to the U3 index the employment rate is somewhere in the 5% range, but if the more accurate U6 index were used the unemployment rate would be over twice that number. The labor participation rate in this country is lower that it has been in decades; many people have to settle for part time jobs and underemployment. Our nation is not the land flowing with milk and honey that it once was. Sadly our government is ignoring these facts and is pushing for a treaty with several counties that will put more strain on our already strained system.
The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, if approved, will let the current administration bring millions of foreign workers into the United States. Under this treaty, which will be touted as a means of free trade, Japanese, Vietnamese, Mexican or Malaysian workers and others will be allowed to come into our country and compete for the jobs that we Americans need to support our families. President Obama is requesting that Congress give him fast track authority; with it he could expedite "temporary entry" guest worker visas. The definition of "temporary" is still under discussion. What it means is unrestricted immigration. It means literally that Congress would not have the authority to restrict immigration because a treaty supersedes a statute under our constitution. While the proponents of this treaty will say that American workers can enter the other countries in this agreement and work, we need to see where the money is. Most of the countries in this agreement are having more economic problems than we are; very few opportunities will be available for American workers.
Other proponents will say that these foreign workers will do the work that the American people will not do. Whether that is true or not we Americans cannot continue to pass ever increasing taxes on the working class to keep up an entitlement state while at the same time hiring foreign workers to do the things we don’t want to do. When two diverse groups such as the Cato institute and the AFL-CIO agrees that this one stinks, it is definitely time to throw it in the trash. This bill will affect the employment situation in our nation and the job at stake just might be yours.
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