President Bush Visits Orange County
When I was in fourth grade President Bush’s dad visited Orange County. I can remember being at Fashion Island with some friends and walking over to the Four Seasons to see if we could figure out which room had the bullet-proof windows. And I remember when the President’s motorcade drove by my house, after the president went for a jog at my school’s track. These are indelible memories from my childhood, and today a whole new group of kids in Orange County get to have memories like these.
As I type this, President Bush is in Irvine giving a speech on immigration reform to the Orange County Business Council. Orange County is a deeply divided community on the issue of immigration, and the President’s vision for immigration reform is at odds with the conservatives in Orange County. After this speech, we will see if our county will start to understand the need for immigrant laborers or if they will continue to deny the fact that immigrants make important contributions to our economy and society.
Cool Picture
Found it on Whitehouse.gov.
Nobody minds immigrants. A lot of people, however, do mind illegal immigrants. If some guest worker program is created then great but nobody should be so presumptuous as to sneak into another country. And I still don’t know why Mexicans don’t just make their own country as great as ours.
the problem with the preznint’s “guest worker program” is that it actually works out to an indentured-servitude program. it gives absolute power to use and abuse the migrant workers until they are done with them then have them deported. and if you are really interested in getting rid of undocumented workers then prepare to ay 50 bucks for strawberries or have your wages driven down. way down.
just simple economics.
You are wrong about the economics of immigrant labor. If we deported all of the illegal immigrants our wages would not be driven down, in fact they would likely go up. They would go up most for the lowest wage people, working the jobs that many immigrant laborers do, and likely not have an effect at all on the higher wage earners.
Fewer workers means higher demand for each worker. This drives prices up for the lowest wage earners. This also changes the cost-benefit of secondary schooling and college. With higher wages for manual labor, school becomes less of a priority since people can make a living without an education.
This means there are fewer educated workers, which drives up demand and wages for those just leaving school. After that, there would be little upward pressure on wages.
You are right, however, that produce will become more expensive. There are a few other things, generally services, that become more expensive as well. But manufactured goods would not become more expensive.
In the end, the things you buy will decide whether your real wages will go up or down. I presume most people don’t buy enough fresh fruit for that to be a huge factor, so on aggregate, real wages would go up.
Why did you leave out the qualifier, “illegal”? Seriously.
Do you think the people opposed to Bush’s amnesty-based reform are opposed to all immigration or that they are simply racist against Mexicans?