Touting a new report by the Bipartisan Policy Center (aka, the unofficial mouthpiece for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce), three former members of the George W. Bush administration, Michael Chertoff (former Secretary, Department of Homeland Security), Henry Cisneros (former Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban Development), and Condoleezza Rice (former Secretary of State) endorsed migration policies that would make Bernie Madoff blush.
Disregarding the economic and foreign policy disasters they left in their wake, which was probably made easy by their plush accommodations at the Four Seasons Silicon Valley where the event took place, the three panelists argued that current immigration levels were just not high enough and only blanket amnesty and open borders would allow America to retain its “demographic edge.”
The main contention of the BPC Immigration Task Force, or the “SWAT team” as Chertoff termed them, is that sufficient economic growth is not happening because there are too few workers in the United States to fill all of jobs vacated by aging Baby Boomers. Only if we import tens of millions of more immigrants can we ever hope to maintain a functioning economy and keep the Medicaid and Social Security programs solvent.
Of course, this is nonsense. There are already three workers for every available job, and for some occupations that ratio is much higher. And it is further nonsense to assert, as the BPC does, that an aging population is resulting in a decrease in the labor participation rate. The truth is that the labor participation for workers 65 years and over increased by 61 percent between 1992-2012 –some older workers choose to continue to work, some can’t afford to retire. By 2022, the labor rate for workers over 65 is predicted to increase another 24 percent. Meanwhile, the labor participation rate for all workers under 55 declined over that same time. The labor participation rate for teenagers is at an all-time low, and in December 2012 there were over 8 million 18-34 years olds not in the labor force, on top of 5.7 unemployed workers in that age range.
Another argument the BPC “all-stars” make is that immigration is vital to the future of Social Security and Medicaid. Using creative accounting, the BPC counts the money immigrants are paying in now, while ignoring the money they will take out later. Curiously, the BPC does not seem to understand that immigrants age at the same rate as the native-born and will put more of a stain on the these programs as they start to collect. And while high levels of immigration have reduced the average age in the United States, that change is negligible. Sooner or later the pyramid collapses, and sooner rather than later if Chertoff, Cisneros, and Rice get their way on immigration.
More immigration won’t put Americans back to work, or save Social Security and Medicaid, but it does, however, enrich the corporations that support the BPC. The collapse of the U.S. economy and fiscal insolvency apparently is a small price to pay in return. Bernie Madoff is a piker in comparison.
11 Comments
Babyboomers can’t afford to retire in this economy. I am 73 years old and still working. Unmanaged immigration without protections for American workers is a pending diaster for US citizens. I suspect that it has been too long since Ms. Rice and company had to really work for a living to have a connection with the American workers struggling in this economy.
In terms of the “demographic edge” they refer to, because of our high rate of immigration we are already beating countries like Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Taiwan. But wait, having lost that valuable demographic edge, they are consistently out competing us economically, yes even Japan. And the prosperity of their citizens continues to improve whereas in our country only the wealthy are becoming more prosperous. But, not to worry. If we can improve our demographic edge even more we can catch up with the real winners in that category: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Yemen, Nigeria, Ghana. The well bribed apologists for our ruinously high immigration rate (ruinous except to the wealthy who benefit from lower wages) are always thinking of new measures of the risks of not increasing immigration yet more. What fatuous new threat will we be presented with next?
I always said that Bush, all of them , were socialist and surrounded by socialist, compassionate conservatism my behind!! I am proved more right every day. Many were worse than he, but he lacked the courage to contain them! Of course they pale in the light of the current fraud regimes Marxism and extreme leftist stance that is essentially a fraud tyranny!
I am a retired USINS officer starting in 1956, retired in 1979, called back for 30 months in 89 for the IRCA amnesty and then again 1997 for 4 yrs in Phoenix, AZ. doing Citizenship Applications. I was one of 8 “Old timers” who were
doing 16 applications a day, 5 days a week. This figures out to around 20,000 new citizens for our crew in those
4 years. When I worked in Amnesty, in Los Angeles, the officers interviewing the applicants were only allowed to
recommend denial for fraud, which ran about 20% for the 5 year applicants and as high as 50% for the farm workers
whose only requirement was to prove that they had worked at farm labor for 90 days in the preceding year. What a
well designed fiasco by our government and the Immigration lawyers who wrote the bill for the Agricultural Interests
who always are claiming to have a labor shortage, even today. The point that I am try to make and should be of
utmost interest to the millions of unemployed Citizens of the USA is WHY are we allowing Legal Resident ALIENS
to immigrate other ALIENS into the USA! Do you know that every legally admitted ALIEN brings or induces 5 more
ALIENS to enter legally or illegally, which we call chain migration.
“Blanket amnesty?” Does this mean no background checks on the drunk drivers, the criminals (aside from sneaking into this country) that include drug lords, rapists, child molesters, domestic abusers? In short, these three, among many others approve and welcome those who disregard our laws and who, if given blanket amnesty, will not suddenly become upright inhabitants. I wonder if the trio is fooling themselves or think they’re fooling us?
God Bless you for this article, Eric.
I’m 45, extremely well-educated, experienced, and skilled. Guess what: I CANNOT FIND A JOB. The entry level jobs won’t touch me–why, when they can hire a kid straight out of college or grad school? The high level jobs I’m “not qualified for” because one has to already be working in the agency to meet the specific skillset they’re looking for.
Yet people, rich people, like Condi Rice, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama, and John McAmnesty go on tv and say we “need to staple green cards on the back of college dimplomas of foreign students!” Nice.
What will I do in the meantime? Move in with my aged parents? What will every other American do?
Well Tim, I’m 62 and my aged parent is living with me, we’re both low income. Start your own business, it’s the only way to stay in the work force, if you’ve never done it before, get your self motivated and excited, it will be the best thing you ever did for yourself.
I know if you have a family that may be harder to do, but there’s help out there, just do what you’re good at and start networking with groups.
Bill and HIllary Clinton are some of those early Boomers, and they don’t seem “retired” to me.
“Using creative accounting, the BPC counts the money immigrants are paying in now, while ignoring the money they will take out later.”
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You might also point out that AMERICANS doing those jobs would pay in the same amount, and quite probably more, since without illegal aliens to depress wages, they’d pay SS taxes on higher earnings. As long as Americans are unemployed, all illegal aliens and immigrants do is DISPLACE Americans from jobs and contributing to the economy, NOT ADD TO THEM.
The “baby boomers are ready to retire” argument is FALSE. Only those at the very first of that wave, born in the mid 1940s, are retirement age. The majority are still years from the now retirement age of 66, a lot many years. Those born in 1954 to 1964 are only going to be 60 down to 50 this year. It’s simply a lie to say that we need to import workers for jobs openings that do not exist now and are unlikely to exist in the future.
Someone made a comparison on executive actions between what this president is doing, and Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in border states in 1863. The clear difference is the country was more or less under martial law at the time, the very existence of the union in doubt.
Retire With an Empty/Robbed Social Security Trust Fund?
LOL….try retire on more unsustainable debt due to recent overpopulation welfare payouts from Social Security to the rich’s interests [these folks don’t depend on Social Security BTW]. That may never be possible in the near future.