Say What?

Thomas Donahue, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was on CNBC today. He said America needs immigration reform. Fair enough. He then elaborated by saying we need to provide high end foreign students the opportunity to stay here after they graduate from our universities. It seemed like a valid point, though one had to wonder why with the trillions the U.S. plows into public education, that we cannot produce enough high achieving students internally to satisfy the end demand for the high end jobs available.

Eventually Mr. Donohue was making statements that made no sense at all. He said we also need much more open immigration policies so businesses can fill the unskilled job positions in America. Say what? We have unfilled low-skilled jobs too? So let's get this straight. We don't have enough high skill Americans AND we don't have enough low skill Americans?

What we have are too many "I don't want to work period" Americans. It is no secret that 20% of American households are now on food stamps. That percentage has almost doubled in six years. It is also no secret the percentage of Americans in the workforce is the smallest in decades. Why is this? Why aren’t more Americans working? The answer is pretty simple. Millions of people in this country have learned that the wide range of dimwitted public policies have made working in the U.S. optional, not mandatory. Think hunger is problem? Think again. Obesity is the number one malady of the poor in America.

The truth is there are more able-bodied citizens refusing to take low skill jobs (the only ones they are qualified for) than ever before. When immigrants come to America they help for a little while. They take those low skill jobs………until they learn rules of the game. Once assimilated into the American culture new immigrants usually take one of two pathways. They either embrace higher learning and achievement, or more often, they embrace the entitlement system like millions of other Americans both old and new. It is the path of least resistance. The easy way out. People are more interested in having babies they can’t afford than upgrading their skills and climbing the ladder. The subsidies we offer to NOT upgrade your skills in America are staggering.

It would seem that things have changed quite a bit since the war on poverty began. The war on poverty is actually the encouragement of stagnation and dependency. Jobs moving heavy furniture, mounting car and truck tires, bagging groceries, installing car batteries, washing/waxing/detailing cars, scooping ice cream, cleaning the aisles of bodily discharges at retail stores and other menial tasks are no longer the sort of things that one MUST do if they have entry level job skills.

When a man like Tom Donohue, a person who is supposed to be supporting intelligent public policies, makes stupid indefensible economic statements it suggests he is now part of an intellectual cesspool that is plaguing America. We are going to be toast in America someday before long thinking we can pay people to do nothing.

Pretty soon the wagon won’t move as we keep adding to the total number of people who do not work or pay taxes to support the wonderful government voters seem to love. Simply sitting in the wagon and waiting for someone else to pull can't be made easy forever.