(12-04-2018 05:21 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(12-04-2018 01:43 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 03:15 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Interesting points IO, but I don’t think the cheap labor is nearly as beneficial to the Republican Party as the opportunity to demonize us is to the Democrats. even the people here think the Republicans are the party of racism and xenophobia.
In any case, wouldn’t legal guest workers fill the need for cheap labor?
Where this becomes unfeasible is not in the economics of it or the administration of it, but on the insistence of the DNC that it must lead to citizenship. No new voters = no Democratic support.

So here's what I don't get. Why don't republicans advance a guest worker bill and force democrats to vote against it?

Ask and ye shall receive? Lawmakers strike deal to double number of guest worker visas

But look, while this increase may pass because neither side is likely willing to shut down the government over it, the whole concept of guest workers is one that both liberal Democrats and Republican immigration hardliners can find common cause in opposing. First of all, to take the stereotypical view of both sides, to a Democrat a guest worker is just a wasted opportunity to otherwise bring in a new potential citizen/Democratic voter, and to a Republican a guest worker is just another scary brown foreigner. But even if not everybody in both parties fully takes the views ascribed to them by their critics, they can both take political cover on ECON 101 grounds: guest workers are artificial boosts in labor supply that by definition depress the wages of the natural labor supply, i.e., American workers. And that is something both the War on Poverty and the "America First!" folks could agree is a bad thing and ought not to be official government policy.

Your article refers to the H-2B visa program ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-2B_visa ) which is not used for the generic illegals who wade into the country. I think I understand your confusion now. Yes, some employers may bring in cheaper people to serve in technical or prorfessional capacities. It seems half my pharmacists and nurses are from other countries. Damn few from south of the Rio Grande, but a lot from India, Ireland, and Africa.

No, I was talking guest workers of the type that swim the Rio Grande or pay coyotes to get them across though tunnels or in trucks. Those people are largely uneducated and unskilled, and when they get here perform the least skilled labor there is.

Let these uneducated and unskilled people come in as guest workers to sell their only commodity, labor, to the highest bidder. That might be McDonalds or Terry's Roofing, or Tom's Lawn Service. I don't see how allowing them to work at those places for $8.50-$10/hour is going to upset the economy of the US, and I don't think Terry or Tom have that much lobbying leverage in Washington that the Republicans in Congress will salute and say Whatever you want, sir.

As for the racial stereotype, maybe people should visit some of the places south of the Rio sometime, or visit Spain, just watch a telenovela, and see how the Hispanics differ so much from the stereotype.

And if Democrats do not see immigrants as a future source of Democrat voters, why do they insist so much on the path to citizenship? We can let let people have a better life for their family and freedom from terror without making them citizens.