Why Is Immigration Illegal Anyway?

Why Is Immigration Illegal Anyway?
November 20, 2011
Benjamin Powell, Art Carden
Birmingham News

As two economists interested in immigration, one an Alabamian by birth, we've kept an eye on the fury surrounding the Alabama's new immigration law. Proponents tout it as a matter of law and order and promise it will "save jobs." There's a larger question at stake, though: Should we even be restricting immigration in the first place?

American immigration restrictions have a long history, but they have never been a good idea. Economist Thomas Leonard documents how even some Progressive Era economists supported immigration restrictions and minimum wages because they wanted to shut members of what they called "low-wage races" out of the American labor market. American reformers who pulled up the ladder in the early 20th century condemned many potential immigrants and native-born Americans to poorer, less fulfilling lives than they would have had if the United States had welcomed more immigrants.

Fears that immigrants will wreck our economy are probably the biggest reason substantial barriers to legal immigration remain on the books. But immigrants don't take our jobs, lower our wages or depress the American economy.

Virtually all economists who study immigration find that it provides a small but positive impact on the economy. It should be obvious that immigrants don't steal jobs from the native-born. Since 1950, the labor force has more than doubled but long-run unemployment is essentially unchanged. As we've added more workers, we've added more jobs.

Immigrants tend to be either high-skilled or low-skilled; Americans tend to be more toward the middle of the skill distribution. This means that immigrants aren't substitutes for American labor but, instead, free up American labor to do jobs where it is more productive. That's one reason economists don't find that immigration depresses the wages of the native-born.

As a number of economists have pointed out, immigrants don't "do jobs Americans won't do." They do jobs that wouldn't exist if the immigrants weren't there to do them. By making life harder for a population of undocumented immigrants, the state government has ensured that future generations of Alabamians will be poorer than they would otherwise be.

The last refuge of the defenders of the new Alabama legislation is to protest that this is not about immigration per se, but about illegal immigration. Perhaps you acknowledge that we are a nation of immigrants but protest that your ancestors came here legally. That dodges the issue. To move to the United States legally in the 19th century and to move to the United States legally in the 21st century are two very different undertakings. We are willing to bet that our ancestors­and yours­would find themselves in the same position as many potential immigrants today: effectively denied entry by layers and layers of red tape.

Defenders of restrictions might insist that the restrictions are still the law, but lots of immoral and unwise things­like slavery and Jim Crow­used to be "the law." Simply repeating "what part of 'illegal' don't you understand?!" misses the real question: Why does the law make it illegal to migrate here? Immigrants are a boon to our economy and restrictions on immigration seem as immoral as many other past laws. Yes, the "illegal" part of illegal immigration is a problem. Alabama's legislators are addressing it the wrong way. As our friend Mark LeBar, a philosopher at Ohio University, has put it, illegal immigration is one of very few issues that really has a magic wand solution: Legalize it.

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=3188

"Republicans Are Endangering National Security." By Which We Mean Uncontrolled Defense Spending.

"Republicans Are Endangering National Security." By Which We Mean Uncontrolled Defense Spending.
Nick Gillespie | November 22, 2011



Here's former Defense Secretary William Cohen -- a former GOP senator from Maine who served in Bill Clinton's cabinet -- tossing a big smoke grenade in the New York Times to provide cover for a new push for increased defense spending:

I have long been concerned that my party's rigid antitax ideology is harming the fiscal health of our nation. Now it is harming our national security as well, as cuts in defense spending on a calamitous scale are about to be triggered. Congressional Republicans need to look back at this sad episode and decide: Do they care more about keeping "a no tax pledge" or giving our troops the tools they need to protect the nation?

Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta is already cutting deeply into the Pentagon's budget, reducing spending by $465 billion over the coming decade. He has indicated that he plans to cut areas once considered untouchable, like military medical and retirement benefits. Savings might also be found in commissaries and exchanges, tuition assistance and duplicative family-support programs....

The Navy is likely to mothball 60 ships, including two carrier battle groups ­ a possibility that led Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, the chief of naval operations, to testify that the cuts could "impact the fleet for 20 to 50 years." The Air Force might have to give up one-third of its fighters and a quarter of its long-range bombers, calling into question our nuclear deterrent. The Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, testified that the Air Force "may not be able to overcome dire consequences." And the Army is likely to have to give up nearly a third of its Army Maneuver Battalions ­ which is why the Army chief of staff, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, has warned that the cuts would leave us with "an unacceptable level of strategic and operational risk." The cuts would also decimate the Marine Corps, leaving it "below the end strength level that's necessary to support even one major contingency," the service's commandant, Gen. James F. Amos, has warned.

Whole bit here.

Where do you start with something like this? Because the super committee failed in its mission to generate plan to cut $1.2 trillion in spending over the next decade, the automatic $1.2 trillion in cuts that go into effect beginning in 2013 will be really bad for the military, argues Cohen. Exactly how anti-tax ideology figures into any of this is unclear, since Cohen could have argued just as easily that Democrats' unwillingness to offer spending cuts created the committee's impasse.

Defense Secretary Panetta "might" find savings in commissaries and "duplicative" programs? Well have at it already! Nothing's stopping you. Has a decade-plus of elective wars done anything to degrade our defense capabilities? Cohen's not saying.

But let's focus in on the former secretary's completely phony notion that the Defense budget is in any way threatened by "cuts." Most of us would take this to mean that you spend less money on something from year to year. That isn't what's happening.

Here's a chart created by Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy that shows the effect of the sequester cuts on spending over the next decade.



The numbers here come from the Congressional Budget Office's August update of the budget baseline. Assuming the sequester cuts actually kick in 2013, what you see is a 16 percent increase in defense spending over the next decade. An increase, not a cut. And, lest we forget, that 16 percent increase will come on top of a 71 percent increase (in real, inflation-adjusted dollars; see figure 5) between 2001 and 2010. According to CBO, annual budgets are going nowhere but up whether the sequester kicks in or not.

If Cohen's bleating about the U.S. military being hollowed out sounds familiar, it's because he's simply following the same script as right-wing groups such as the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute, who have equated any spending restraint on defense with cheaping out on the "price of greatness." What Cohen's piece thus reveals is not a dire emergency for national defense but just exactly how the military-industrial complex works: We've always got to be spending tons more on defense. Spending less that we can imagine is exactly the sort of cut that will leave us vulnerable to any enemy you can imagine and is just unpatriotic.

Take it away, Ike (who knew war and defense as well as anyone alive today):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_II0H7X5O4&feature=player_embedded

http://reason.com/blog/2011/11/22/republicans-are-endangering-national-sec

Ron Paul vs. the Rest of the GOP Presidential Field on Foreign Policy

Ron Paul vs. the Rest of the GOP Presidential Field on Foreign Policy
Brian Doherty | November 23, 2011

Without Ron Paul in the mix, last night's debate would have been more a bidding up of hostility to foreigners (except Israel) than any actual arena of opposing ideas on the future of American foreign policy.

Paul started off talking of "needless and unnecessary wars" making us less safe and beggering our coffers; probably slipped by using Timothy McVeigh as an example of how normal legal procedures can deal with terrorism (and I wish he'd have challenged Ed Meese on the factual significance of these alleged 42 terror assaults that Patriot Act has stopped; aren't they in fact mostly ginned-up nonsense such as Jacob Sullum blogged about earlier today?) since it allowed Gingrich to claim that the real goal are legal procedures that make sure nothing bad ever happens. Paul had a good rescue by stressing the threat to liberty of priviliging stopping crimes above any other concern, but I wonder how resonant such concerns are.

Paul reminded us that we might not want to give the president the sole power to assassinate Americans on his say so; that Israel can likely make the most intelligent decision on their own as to whether to start attacking Iranian alleged nuclear site and we should neither be dictating such decisions nor committing to help with them; that trying to buy friendship overseas with foreign aid doesn't always work; that foreign aid isn't necessary for overseas development and in fact is often more like making poor people here support rich people over there; and kept reminding his fellow alleged fiscal conservatives that foreign policy has real financial costs that they are never thinking of.

Paul also last night hit the drug war as "another war we ought to cancel," at length, concluding "the federal war on drugs is a total failure" with specific hat tips toward the absurdity of federal assaults on states with medical pot; and that meddling in the Middle East is what gins up terror against us in the Middle East, with his usual calls to empathetic understanding, considering what we would think/do if other countries did to us what we blithely do to other countries--"it's just looking for trouble, why don't we mind our own business?"

Paul's most summational quotable quote, applicable to not only foreign policy but so much about the current plans and ambitions of the U.S. government: "It's a road to disaster. We better wake up."

Here's the Paul-centric highlights clip from last night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZAW2spbZys&feature=player_embedded

In other Paul observations and news:

*Paul as the only voice last night against racial profiling in the name of the war on terror.

*AEI sums up the debate it co-sponsored, giving as much attention to Jon Huntsman's wan anti-nation-building comments as to Paul's concerted assault on the roots of GOP and American foreign policy.

*Glenn Greenwald from Salon attacks the nature and character of the interlocutors at the debate, and hat-tips to Paul's rare sense:

It was like a carnival of war criminals, warmongers, torturers, and petty tyrants: Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, best known for his 1980s war on pornography, was dredged up to demand that the government be vested with more Patriot Act powers (because he's a believer in individual liberty and small government); there was long-time supporter of Ahmad Chalabi and a war on Iran, Danielle Pletka; Iraq War propagandist and torture regime architect Paul Wolfowitz; and Fred Kagan of the mighty Kagan warrior family. But remember: as the supremely "objective" CBS' Bob Schieffer made clear in his snickering, scornful interview on Face the Nation this weekend, it is Ron Paul who is crazy and bizarre for suggesting that U.S. aggression played a role in motivating 9/11 and for being worried that bellicose actions against Iran are making things worse and may lead to war.

*From Paul's campaign web site blogger Jack Hunter, a set of media stars giving Paul props for schooling Romney last night on the myth of defense cuts.

*The Christian Science Monitor from a few days ago collecting examples of major media now taking Paul seriously, in a story that was front-page linked on Drudge. While I don't follow Drudge meticulously, various Paulistas believe this might have been his first big-time positive play for Paul on that site, which they see in itself as a further sign of Paul's reputational rise.

*In a poll commissioned by Paul-supporting superpac RevolutionPAC, Paul actually is winning in Iowa with 25 percent. Here's why they think their poll is better than others:

 The TeleResearch survey is the first to incorporate disaffected Democrats and Independents who will not vote to reelect Obama and will instead crossover to participate in the Iowa Republican Caucus, as well as likely Republican caucus-goers.

Survey sample size is approximately 2,900, with almost 700 likely Republican caucus-goers. Indiana's TeleResearch Corp., which has been polling voters for more than 18 years, reports that the margin of error is less than 3%.

Factoring in both Republican caucus-goers and disaffected Democrats and Independents who've indicated that they will participate in the Iowa Republican Caucus, Ron Paul leads at 25%, with an approximate 4-point advantage over Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain.

http://reason.com/blog/2011/11/23/ron-paul-vs-the-rest-of-the-gop-presiden

Fwd: [LA-F] Public sector workers earn £4,000 a year pay premium compared to private staff

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Public sector workers earn £4,000 a year pay premium compared to private staff

By Becky Barrow

Last updated at 7:49 AM on 24th November 2011

The average public sector worker earns nearly £4,000 a year more than a typical private sector worker, official figures revealed yesterday.

The figures emerged days before state workers hold what union leaders hope will be the biggest strikes for a generation.

The Office for National Statistics said the average public sector worker, who works full-time, is paid an annual salary of £28,802.

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Well paid: The average public sector worker, including teachers, nurses and civil servants, earns nearly £4,000 a year more than a private sector worker

By comparison, the average full-time worker in the private sector receives a salary of only £25,000, a gap of £3,802.

This could cover the cost of a two-week foreign holiday for a family of four, or nearly 40 trips to the supermarket spending an average of £100 on each visit.

Teachers, NHS staff, civil servants and many more of Britain's six million state workers will walk out next Wednesday in a row over changes to their gold-plated pensions.
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Divorce from reality: Matthew Sinclair said the figures showed there was no justification for upcoming strikes

Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers' Alliance campaign group, said: 'This is yet more evidence that the justifications for disruptive public sector strikes are divorced from the economic reality faced by ordinary workers.

'For years, private sector workers have struggled to pay ever higher taxes with meagre raises, while public sector workers have enjoyed inflation-busting pay hikes.

'These figures disprove the spin from union bosses that the generous pension deals found in the public sector are somehow compensation for lower pay than the private sector.'

The majority of private sector workers do not get a pension from their boss. If they do have a pension, the average pension pot they will have built up is only £26,000, which is equal to a retirement income of around £1,400 a year.

The average annual pension in the public sector is worth £7,841, according to a report, commissioned by the Government and produced by former Labour minister Lord Hutton.

Millions of cash-strapped families are being forced to 'simply go without' as they struggle to make ends meet, a Bank of England report warned yesterday.

The study highlighted the problems facing workers trying to survive austerity Britain with poor pay rises, tax increases, soaring household bills and benefit cuts.

It said families are 'budgeting ever more keenly', trading down to cheaper shops, taking 'fewer, shorter holidays', and 'shopping around for the cheapest deals on hotels and restaurants'.

These include delaying buying big items, such as a new dishwasher, until a 'replacement becomes unavoidable'.

The number using public transport has increased because people can no longer afford to use their car due to the high price of petrol and diesel.

Meanwhile, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that over the last year, workers' average weekly earnings have risen by only 0.4 per cent, while bosses' pay has gone up by 10 per cent.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2065479/Public-sector-workers-earn-4-000-year-pay-premium-compared-private-staff.html#ixzz1ec7j52Z9

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Libertarian Alliance Forum
List Administrator

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That solemn sketch the pure sad artist wrought
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here is a new anti-poverty summit addendum for your agenda i hope you will you consider

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may god bless all creative inspirations

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