George Rebane

The Senate will “mark up” and pass their version of immigration reform, probably tomorrow.  What is turning out to be an amnesty bill has drawn a lot of fire from the Right for a lot of reasons, not all of them flying in tight formation.  For example, the Heritage Foundation has published a report outlining some of the bill’s shortcomings and delivering the punch line that the net life-cycle cost of the legislation to the American taxpayer will be $6.3T over the 50-year time horizon covered.  Full report here.

The Cato Institute has declared the report to be bull pucky because Heritage did not use “dynamic modeling and scoring” when they simulated the impact of putting 11M+ illegals through the Senate’s immigration process.  Instead, Cato’s analysis says the Senate bill would “increase U.S. GDP by $1.5 trillion in the ten years after enactment.”  Yes, you got it right, they’re talking past each other comparing apples and oranges.  More here.

The Senate bill does have the usual Democratic flaws – no secure border, early start of government benefits, and shortened path to citizenship.  But I have a couple of concerns to add to these.  First, I don’t think that the 11M illegals will behave any differently from Americans with the same education levels enjoying the same benefits.  I don’t think that these new immigrants will continue ‘doing the jobs that Americans refuse to do’, instead they’ll behave just like Americans.

Second, I think that to keep their snouts in the trough, they will work and vote for candidates who promise to keep that trough filled.  (Their pardons will also motivate the rest of the Hispanic Americans to vote for their munificent providers.)  In short, as these people become franchised voters, they will provide the Democrats with an unassailable majority to pursue the provisions of Agenda21. 

Speaking again of systemic unemployment (an enduring topic on RR), this cohort of illegal aliens has nothing to recommend it in alleviating the current levels of under- and unemployed.  The cited dynamic models don’t account for the dynamism of accelerating technology; these ever hopeful models don’t recognize how the workforce now ratchets downward with every recession leaving a lower fraction of eligible workers participating in the workforce.  When the smoke clears from immigration reform, we will have just added to the level of systemic unemployment in the country.

With runaway debt levels, unfunded liabilities, mounting regulatory burden, insane healthcare, unabated green initiatives, and mounting tax burdens, the country is headed for its next economic shock that will most likely occur before 2016.  None of this is being discussed or even anticipated in the design of a reformed immigration law that will serve Americans’ interests.

[9may13 update]  The nearby photo of the Verizon ad
in today’s WSJ is apropos to the discussion of immigration reform.  It shows a STEM worker contemplating a whiteboard full of squigglies.  I spent a good part of my time in harness in that position, either alone or with colleagues.  In those sessions time disappeared and reappeared only when the janitor stuck his head into my office or conference room where we were huddled, or the inevitable call from one of our wives informing us that we had missed dinner since the children had to be fed.  All that came with the territory.

The text at the bottom of the ad is not readable in the photo, but it is relevant when we consider how to prioritize whom we should attract to these shores.  It reads – Brains matter.  Particularly when you’re dealing with robots and algorithms.  But at Verizon’s Innovation Centers, you’ll see another constant.  Passion.  Smart people working overtime.  Running on fumes.  Because they know what technology can solve.  They know it can help doctors make a more informed diagnosis in seconds instead of months.  They know if we think long and hard enough, we can help insure a constant supply of clean energy.  Or help a fire fighter see through a blaze.  The hours are long.  But great.  Because we believe the world’s biggest challenges deserve even bigger solutions.

[10may13 update]  In my ‘Teach Them to Code’ post I argued that learning a programming language was a critical skill for young people to acquire.  Learning the elements of programming requires the student to be able to take a specification (or objective), break its achievement down into parts (or tasks), and understand the sequence and content (process or work required) in each of the parts.  In short, programming skills are transferable to countless other job areas beyond writing code.  And also vice versa; if a person has trouble learning to write simple code, they will probably have trouble organizing a job assignment.

In the 10may13 WSJ, Kirk McDonald, president of PubMatic, writes an open letter to this year’s new baccalaureate graduates telling them not only why he won’t hire them, but why they will have trouble getting a job anywhere – ‘Sorry College Grads, I Probably Won’t Hire You’.  His message is summarized by “If you’re at all interested in media, technology or related fields, please learn a little computer programming.”

McDonald reviews an oft ignored stat – in the next decade(!!) the US will produce only 40K computer science BS degrees, and also 120K new jobs requiring that degree.  And that’s only in computer science and not the entire STEM field of jobs in which the equivalent stats are even more distressing.  We all know where these jobs are going, and from where the needed people to fill them are coming.  In short, Americans will not be able to fill such gratifying career jobs, and McDonald’s point reinforces one often made on RR that such graduates with deficient degrees will not be able to fill very many positions that require college degrees.

The bottom line here is that our immigration policy should be heavily weighted toward attracting the talent needed to fill the burgeoning STEM and other wealth producing jobs versus inviting in people to do jobs that Americans have been taught are below their station in life.  A much needed national initiative should focus on getting Americans to do all jobs available in our land, and not further burden the country with more welfare programs and eager illegals willing to take any available job.