I am going to tell you the problem. It is not Trump, Trump is a mere manifestation of the disease that is tearing America apart. The problem is the Republican party, period. One of my favorite sayings is as follows. You have to stand for something, if you don't stand for something, you will fall for everything. My question is simple, what exactly does the Republican party stand for? Is it smaller government? Nope, I doubt you realize this, but even though unemployment has hit historical highs during the last few months, personal income has actually increased. Driving that increase, government payments, like that damn $600 a week supplement to unemployment benefits. And of course there was the Covid stimulus check. What a damn joke. Nothing conservative about those measures.
Does the Republican party stand for free trade? Well, they used to. Then Trump came along, now the Republican party is all about protectionism, tariffs, and restricted trade. It is stupid. The administration actions are nothing more than picking winners and losers. Something the Republican party used to be against.
One thing needs to be made clear. The Republican party does not give two shits about the will of the American people. For years, they have manipulated state legislatures, worked hard to disenfranchise entire voting blocks, and introduced legislation that is counter intuitive to the will of the people. The ACA is the classic example. A majority of Americans support the ACA, yet the Republican party has made the elimination of the ACA one of their primary objectives. In a way, I hope they are successful. Going to be funny when it is eliminated, the doughnut hole suddenly pops back up, and hundreds of thousands of seniors see their prescription drug bills skyrocket.
Maybe you will say that the Republican party is for a closed border, or at least immigration restrictions. First, I have to ask, since most Republicans believe that the government is not capable of doing anything as efficiently as the "free" market, how is it that same government can pick and choose its citizens efficiently? But then I want to point out that several Trump hotels do a booming business in anchor babies. They advertise, albeit mostly in white European nations, that people can come stay in the hotel and pop out a baby that is an American citizen. Sure, they don't have an office in Mexico. But Russia, you betcha. And perhaps you don't know this, but Ivanka Trump has spent a lot of time in China, and her husband even more, courting Chinese millionaires to pay the half million dollars in order to BUY, yes, I said it, BUT citizenship in the United States.
And I know, abortion is a big issue with some Republicans. But here is the thing. Roe v. Wade is not going to be overturned. The Republican party never even pretended to work to have it overturned. It is a red herring, dangled in front of a uninformed electorate, a dog whistle. The vast majority of abortions are done on women that already have kids. The reason, they can't afford another child. If the Republican party really wanted to reduce abortion they would support additional support of women with children. And I got to tell you, if I had a dollar for every Baptist minister that shuttled his young daughter off to have an abortion I could retire.
I'm not much into the whole abortion thing. I could care less really. However in states that have Republican leadership, they have made laws against various procedures regarding abortion, including my state of Ohio. On the national level, it's not up to Republicans to control abortion, that's up to the Supreme Court.
So do you have credible evidence of Trump advertising his American hotels for the sole purpose of having anchor babies? I'll wait. Now how would all these prescriptions for senior citizens go up if we got rid of Commie Care. Let me tell you, I had employer sponsored healthcare coverage my entire life. It was dropped the day Commie Care started, and I'm not alone. Many people, particularly who worked for small companies like I did seen the same. In fact, I went out job searching after that. What I found is that most didn't offer the benefit any longer. Did anybody shed a tear for the millions of us? Hell no.
Trump can't do zero for the country, so he did sign on to the 600 dollar unemployment farce, but guess who put it on his desk? That's right, the Democrat House. Yes, we hit historic highs for unemployment, but that is far from Trump's fault. The virus hit the entire world. We managed to bring that down some, had the stock market rebound, and the least GDP damage of all G7 countries except China, if you can trust their reporting.
Trump did more to fight illegal immigration than the last four Presidents combined, and this was with strong opposition from the Democrats, who closed down the government for the longest period of time in our history over a stupid wall. But it meant that much to them. Not to worry though, if Biden sneaks in, he promised that wall construction will stop on his first day in office.
Illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border plummeted after the Trump administration required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for court hearings in the U.S., according to a report.
www.foxnews.com
The number of people arrested for illegally crossing into the U.S. from Mexico dropped for a third month in a row in August, down 62% from the May peak of
www.washingtonexaminer.com
The White House announced a crackdown on "birth tourism" this week in an effort to end the
townhall.com
President Donald Trump is ordering the Departments of State and Homeland Security to take all steps in their power to reduce the currently hundreds of thousands of people who overstay temporary visas every year.
freebeacon.com
And where are the benefits from his fight on illegal immigration?
Illegals cost the US taxpayer a billion dollars a year. They keep wages down for Americans and take jobs Americans should be working. And don't give me this lettuce picking stuff. Illegals are in nearly every sector of our labor. Then they take the money they earned, live in a two bedroom house or apartment with 10 people, send the savings of that back over the border.
Then there is the crime issue. The counterpoint to that is that Americans commit more crimes than illegals. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. However if my American neighbor goes out and rapes and kills a woman, there was no possible way to stop that. When an illegal does the same, there was a way to save that life by him not being here in the first place.
Let me teach you a little something. First, immigrants, both legal and illegal, actually help to increase wages for every category of worker except the unskilled high school dropout. Does it really make sense to sacrifice increased productivity in order to protect those individuals that refused to get an education or learn a skill? But let me explain how they increase productivity.
Take the bricklayer. Perhaps an immigrant, even an illegal immigrant, is hired to carry the bricks, mix the cement, clean up, and do all the little things that the bricklayer normally has to do himself. By hiring that immigrant the bricklayer can now spend more time doing what he does best, laying bricks. More bricks laid per hour is more productivity, and if the bricklayer works for a company, hiring the immigrant and increasing the productivity of the bricklayer will result in the brick layer what, why making more money,
Look, I doubt you will spend two minutes looking over the white paper but you need to know, there is really no argument among economists. Immigrants, legal and illegal, give us more than they take. And that is just speaking in economic terms, that does not even factor in how their diversity increases our creativity and expands our culture.
But now lets talk about crime. Perhaps you don't know, but I do know. American citizens commit far more crimes than illegal immigrants, but more importantly, a higher percentage of citizens commit crimes than immigrant, illegal and legal. And don't even try to claim illegal immigrants are committing a crime. Being here without papers is a regulatory violation, like a speeding ticket. Saying illegal immigrant is like saying illegal speeder.
But finally, well there is something that could have been done about your American neighbor. His mother could have had an abortion and then he wouldn't be here. That argument is as sound as yours about the illegal immigrant not being here, and does about as much good.
The cognitive dissonance of the right's position on immigration is mind numbing. The right believes in "free markets", they believe the government should stay out of their business. The government can't even tell someone to wear a mask for the protection of public health. But that same government can pick and choose it's citizens. That same government can regulate the "market" of our border and our population. Freedom of movement is a part of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", it is an inalienable right, which means that everyone, citizens and non-citizen alike, have that right and no government can take it away without due process.
The reality is immigration is down. And yes, Trump deserves the credit for that. It is the market at work. It was not his policies at the border, in fact, initially, those policies resulted in increased illegal immigration just as they have in the past. But once the economy went all to hell, well illegal immigration declined significantly. Trumps inept handling of the corona virus did more to decrease immigration than all of his immigration policies combined. I guess you can give him credit for that.