Posted by Tina
Okay America this is what you get when the parties “work together” in a “bipartisan” fashion:
The measure would increase the number of H-2B visa workers permitted in the U.S. in 2016 from 66,000 to about 264,000. The provision is on page 701 of the omnibus spending bill: “SEC. 565. Section 214(g)(9)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(g)(9)(A)) is amended by striking ”2004, 2005, or 2006 shall not again be counted toward such limitation during fiscal year 2007.” and inserting ”2013, 2014, or 2015 shall not again be counted toward such limitation during fiscal year 2016.” The omnibus provision was sponsored by Maryland Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski and North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.
Reminder: The 5.0% unemployment number is meaningless. As many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Those that have completely given up looking for work numbered 3,370,000 as of October 2015. 14% of young people aged 24-34 are living with their parents. Single women, the disabled, the elderly, minorities, teenagers, students, and first-generation immigrants will be hurt the most by this increase in foreign workers.
But hey, at least Obama won’t be accused of “outsourcing jobs.”
Senate Republicans continue in the Obama negotiating tradition of caving to the demands of the opposition. All of the regulatory and spending cuts that were in the House bill were stripped from the Senate version. The House will vote on the Senate version of the bill on Friday.
Conservative Republicans get nothing, Democrats get everything is how I read it. Evidently Ryan’s idea of party unity is giving nothing to the conservatives in his own party but keeping Democrats happy as pigs in slop.
The most screwy part of the bill besides increasing H-2B visas is the provision to end the ban on crude oil exports. As long as we are forced to import crude oil to meet our needs why on earth should we be exporting any? That is just plain nuts in my book. I suppose that US crude producers wish to have a global market to trade in, but isn’t crude is sold at prevailing market prices or by contracts based on market prices no matter who buys it?
Marketing & Trading Of Crude Oil
My best guess is it would benefit American’s who depend on oil jobs. Right now there’s such a glut world wide it hardly matters…but it will down the road. Also the Government Accountability Office “reviewed four economic studies and found that gas prices could decrease anywhere from 1.3 cents to 13 cents per gallon.” See here
Well, that link to Marketing & Trading Of Crude Oil turned out to be a big fat zero. Ask Ryan Olson to implement comment editing by commenters. I’ll try again …
Marketing & Trading Of Crude Oil
or
http://www.petroleumonline.com/content/overview.asp?mod=6
Off Topic (pulled from Drudge)
Yale fail: Ivy leaguers sign ‘petition’ to repeal First Amendment
****Excerpt
Looking to understand just how controversial the debate over free speech on our college campuses really is, filmmaker and satirist Ami Horowitz recently traveled to Yale University, one of our nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, to speak directly to students.
“I decided to take this campus free speech debate to its logical conclusion,” said Horowitz, who asked students if they’d sign a petition calling for an outright repeal of the First Amendment. “The result was this unbelievable display of total stupidity.”
****End Excerpt
The take on Breitbart —
Paul Ryan Betrays America
We were warned that Paul Ryan was a John Boehner clone, and they were right. He deserves a dose of the Eric Cantor treatment at the first opportunity.
And any bill more than 2 pages long should be rejected on general principles. These behemoth bills allow too many political goodies at taxpayer expen$e or downright shenanigans to be hidden.
Anyone taking bets on whether or not members of Clowngress have actually read this one either?
Foreigners do not compete for the same jobs as American workers.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/immigrants-did-not-take-job
This article is ignorant, divisive, and fear-mongering.
I have a great deal of respect for CATO. I have to disagree about the conclusions drawn based on several realities and conditions.
Our economy is stuck in the mud. Companies are leaving the country due to draconian regulations and noncompetitive tax laws. Companies are replacing workers with foreign workers at less pay. The number of Americans who cannot find work and have given up looking was 92,120,000 as of June of this year. Most of the jobs being created are part time and a number of people working those jobs would prefer full time work in their field and can’t find it. Wages have been artificially forced higher creating the need to seek low wage workers. When high taxes, increased regulations, and Obamacare is piled on top labor is the only place where cuts can be made.
It is a fact that Americans are losing their jobs and being forced to train their foreign replacements. It is a fact that jobs in the building industry have been severely impacted by foreign workers. It is true that people that have come here, legally and illegally, have taken jobs in the hotel/motel industry and similar industry work that American born people used to do. It is a fact that our overly generous welfare system has lured some people into dependency instead of self reliance.
A robust economy would help to repair some of this but that will not happen under any democrat president or democrat policy passed by democrats and beltway driven republicans.
American workers are being systematically made to pay for “white privilege” as we move toward fundamental transformation.
Tina: “The number of Americans who cannot find work and have given up looking was 92,120,000 as of June of this year.”
Come on. You’re smarter than this. You KNOW this isn’t true. You even said in your article that the number of people who have given up looking for work was 3 million, not 92 million.
92 million is NOT the “number of Americans who cannot find word and have given up looking.”
It’s the number of Americans not in the labor force.
You know the difference, but to explain for those who might not: that number includes the elderly, the disabled, stay-at-home moms and dads, students who have no interest in working, etc. In fact, about half that number–41 million–are retirees, and 15 million are students who are not looking for a job.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/10/21/what-we-know-about-the-92-million-americans-who-arent-in-the-labor-force/
Your original number, 3,370,000, was much closer to the truth. I’m not sure why you inflated that by a factor of 30, except that many Republican politicians have also made the mistake of confusing the number of Americans who’ve given up looking for work with the number not in the labor force. I’d hoped you wouldn’t fall for that obvious fabrication.
Chris, According to these your information on who is counted in the labor force participation rate is incorrect.
“Labor Force Participation Rate
While studying employment, another important figure to determine is the labor force participation rate. Here, we compare the size of the labor force with the number of people that could potentially be a part of the labor force. It is important to note that we do not include people under the age of 16 in this figure. In addition, students, retirees, the disabled, homemakers, and the voluntarily idle are not counted in the labor force. The labor force as the percentage of the total population over the minimum working age is called labor force participation rate.”
http://www.econport.org/content/handbook/Unemployment/Define.html
And this.
“People who would like work, but haven’t ACTIVELY looked for it in the last month are NOT counted as being in the labor force no matter how much they want a job.
The other group that isn’t included in the labor force are students, homemakers, retired people and those under 16 who are working. They are, however, counted in the population.
Historical Labor Force Participation Rate
The labor force participation rate edged up between 1948 until the late 1990s. From 1948 – 1963, rates remained below 60%. However, rates slowly inched up as more women entered the labor force, breaking 61% in the early 1970s, 63% in the 1980s and reaching a peak of 67.3% in 2000.
Once the 2001 recession hit, rates fell to 66% and didn’t get better throughout the “jobless recovery.” The 2008 financial crisis sent the participation rate below 66%, and it’s continued to fall ever since. By August 2015, it reached a low of 62.6%. See more at Labor Force Statistics.
This drop in the rate would usually mean that the supply of workers is falling, and wages should therefore rise. However, that’s not happening. Instead, income inequality is increasing as income levels remain stagnant. Part of this is because jobs are being outsourced. That’s due to a greater use of robots, and businesses spending cash on replacing capital equipment instead of hiring more workers.
It’s unlikely the participation rate will ever return to its peak in the early part of this century. One reason is that nearly a third of the unemployed have been without a job for six months or more. Only 10% of these long-term unemployed find a job each month. It becomes so frustrating that they drop out of the labor force. They may not return because they don’t have updated skills and employers aren’t willing to take a chance with them.
What’s the most worrying is that 2.9 million of those who have dropped out are between 25-54. That’s prime earning years, and they may not have a chance to recover. Despite improving job opportunities, they aren’t returning to the labor force. (Source: Gene Epstein, “The Mystery of the Missing Workers,” Barron’s, March 16, 2015.)
That’s known as structural unemployment. That’s when the skills would-be workers have no longer match what employers need. Without training, they won’t return to the labor force.
Last, but not least, is the aging of America. As Baby Boomers reach retirement age, they are dropping out of the labor force. That’s why the labor force participation rate may never regain its past levels. Article updated December 4, 2015.”
http://useconomy.about.com/od/glossary/fl/Labor-Force-Participation-Rate-Formula.htm
“This drop in the rate would usually mean that the supply of workers is falling, and wages should therefore rise. However, that’s not happening. Instead, income inequality is increasing as income levels remain stagnant. Part of this is because jobs are being outsourced. That’s due to a greater use of robots, and businesses spending cash on replacing capital equipment instead of hiring more workers. ”
It’s important for Americans to realize that there are several reasons that businesses spent cash on equipment, robot replacements, and outsourcing. All of them are policy changes made or pushed by Obama and the Democrats. Obamacare, tax incentives to borrow money for equipment, raising the minimum wage in a stagnant economy, tax structure that punishes when foreign profits are brought home. Everything the former administration did destroyed opportunities for economic and job growth.
It’s not at all surprising the participation rate is where it is or that most of the jobs created were part time and low pay.
Thank you for bringing some sanity and fact back to the comments.
Re : “Foreigners do not compete for the same jobs as American workers.”
Well then that must explain why it is just an illusion that H-2B visa workers are taking jobs in high tech like Microsoft and Microsoft has been laying off so many American citizen software engineers.
Correction : That was H-1B workers filling jobs.
Re : “Foreigners do not compete for the same jobs as American workers.”
Pie I just realized how silly this statement is just based on the word ‘compete.” We all compete with others for jobs. When Americans cannot find work to the tune of nearly a third of the population it’s no time to import more workers.
The only possible explanation for this is fundamental transformation of the nation. Our nation will be less healthy and more third world poor as a result.
It makes more sense to have policies that uplift everyone. A growing robust economy would help people of all nations. What is it with liberals that they have to tear the successful down?
Tina: “When Americans cannot find work to the tune of nearly a third of the population it’s no time to import more workers.”
Wow, so you really do believe that nearly 1/3 of Americans “cannot find work.”
I mean, wow.
At this point you really should just say “I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about.”
H2B visa holders are exempt from ObamaCare making them much cheaper for employers with 50 and more employees.
From an attorney.
“One exception to the health insurance enrollment requirement for lawfully present non-citizens is that the law does not treat non-citizens as “lawfully present” under the ACA if the person cannot be reasonably expected to remain lawfully present in the United States for the entire term of the health insurance plans offered through the exchange websites. For example, H-2B visas allow foreign workers to enter the United States for ten month periods. If the insurance exchanges require enrollment in an insurance plan for longer than the worker can reasonably be expected to remain in the United States, the law does not consider them “lawfully present” under the ACA. These individuals do not need to enroll in qualified health insurance. At this time, the health insurance exchanges are not fully operational. Texas does not have a state insurance exchange, and the federal exchange has been difficult to use. This means that we do not know if insurance companies will offer health insurance coverage for limited time periods for persons lawfully present in the United States on temporary visas or with other temporary statuses.”
http://www.abogadolozano.com/affordable-care-act/#sthash.PIzYDlut.dpuf
Re Chris The Big Expert : Foreigners do not compete for the same jobs as American workers. This article is ignorant, divisive, and fear-mongering.
Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements
ORLANDO, Fla. — The employees who kept the data systems humming in the vast Walt Disney fantasy fief did not suspect trouble when they were suddenly summoned to meetings with their boss.
While families rode the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and searched for Nemo on clamobiles in the theme parks, these workers monitored computers in industrial buildings nearby, making sure millions of Walt Disney World ticket sales, store purchases and hotel reservations went through without a hitch. Some were performing so well that they thought they had been called in for bonuses.
Instead, about 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost.
“I just couldn’t believe they could fly people in to sit at our desks and take over our jobs exactly,” said one former worker, an American in his 40s who remains unemployed since his last day at Disney on Jan. 30. “It was so humiliating to train somebody else to take over your job. I still can’t grasp it.”
Disney isn’t the only company where that’s happening either.
For once we agree high tech companies do look to increase the number of visas they hire under, just look at the authors of software these days, bottom line the visa increase was on the table for awhile and we should have not increased the number. That said congress works for their donors not the American people. The deals on the table come at a risk for the middle class but lots of goodies for Major corporations. I personally would rather see a shutdown than these deals. Bad for all citizens. The bad outweighs the good.
Equally important is the Labor Force Participation Rate which is at a 38 year low. There are over 94 million or 62.5% of our working age 16-65 work force out of work. They are individuals who have been dropped off of the U-3 unemployment count, not disabled, under retirement age and unable to find a full-time job.
The 94 million is only a head count of the workers and does not factor in any children under the age of 16 who are dependents of a parent/s, That number would be staggering considering our nation’s population is around 320 million.
“United States Labor Force Participation Rate 1950-2015:
The labor force participation rate in the United States was reported at 62.5 percent in November of 2015, near a near 38-year low. Shrinkage in labor force participation has accounted for the bulk of the drop the unemployment rate from a peak of 10 percent in October 2009 to the current 7-1/2-year low of 5.0 percent. Labor Force Participation Rate in the United States averaged 63 percent from 1950 until 2015, reaching an all time high of 67.30 percent in January of 2000 and a record low of 58.10 percent in December of 1954. Labor Force Participation Rate in the United States is reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/labor-force-participation-rate
BLS chart:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
As some may already know, I am not a big fan of Rush Limbaugh, but here he speaks for me —
GOP Sells America Down the River
Time to call, email and FB message our House Reps and tell to vote no on this budget bill. Force it back to the Senate.
“Hello Doug LaMalfa…..”
I can not believe we all agree here! I am blowing up the congressional phones myself this is a no go on all accounts. We may not agree on many things but this is a bad deal for us the people. We are continuously being sold out.
Peggy, you’ll be happy to know La Malfa voted against the House version. I can’t imagine anything that would persuade him to vote differently tomorrow, not that it will matter.
I hope it’s stopped, if it can be. The backlash is huge on the internet. This provision was slipped in Wednesday morning, H2B visas are for low skilled blue collar workers with high school or less education and could displace over 200,000 Americans.
Rush and every conservative site is trashing it and Ryan. Saying Obama just got everything he wanted and it was delivered on a silver platter.
http://americaweloveyou.com/2015/12/17/rush-the-country-was-just-sold-down-the-river-again-by-your-very-republican-party/
Yes Tina Disney is just one of many stories. There are many more instances of foreign workers under work visa taking jobs away from American citizens. I just thought the Disney story particularly poignant and that others reading it and interested could research the subject further themselves. In any case, I have some more instances of foreign works taking jobs away from American citizens listed below.
Chris wrote “Foreigners do not compete for the same jobs as American workers. This article is ignorant, divisive, and fear-mongering.”
Get that “This article is ignorant, divisive, and fear-mongering.” Classic Chris bulls***. He is always looking for an angle to call others ignorant, divisive, and fear-mongering or similar. Anyone besides me tired of this continuous stream of crap from Chris?
Why Chris is full of s*** (and in this instance the Cato Institute too).
Qualcomm Lays Off 4,500 Workers While Demanding More H-1bs
Microsoft Lays Off Thousands While Demanding More H1-B Visas
U.S. Senator blasts Microsoft’s H-1B push as it lays off 18,000 workers
Foreign workers fill hundreds of Sacramento-area IT jobs
Toys ‘R’ Us Brings Temporary Foreign Workers to U.S. to Move Jobs Overseas
Southern California Edison IT workers ‘beyond furious’ over H-1B replacements
Bad hyperlink in the above —
Foreign workers fill hundreds of Sacramento-area IT jobs
http://www.abc10.com/story/news/investigations/2015/02/24/foreign-workers-fill-hundreds-of-sacramento-area-it-jobs/22603549/
Thanks for doing that extra research Pie.
By the way …
Ted Cruz once championed increasing H-1B visas by a whopping 500% (from 65,000 to 325,000).
He has since changed his tone —
Cruz said the H-1B program “was designed to bring in engineers and computer scientists who could generate jobs and add to our economic growth, and if companies are abusing it and laying off American workers they need to be investigated, they need to be audited, and if they broke the law then they need to be prosecuted.”
Sen. Ted Cruz changes his tone on H-1Bs
I do not trust Cruz on this issue, but it won’t stop me from voting for him. I am not a one issue voter with the exception of gun grabbers.
I can not believe we all agree here! I am blowing up the congressional phones myself this is a no go on all accounts. We may not agree on many things but this is a bad deal for us the people. We are continuously being sold out.
You know Pie this is one of the frustrations of politics. Well meaning ideas often have unintended consequences. I can understand how positions can change in some instances.
The purpose in having a sound immigration policy is the preservation, protection, and enhancement of the nation and the people. When we purposely flood the nation with foreigners and allow floods of illegals to cross and remain, services are stretched , our ability to know who is in the country and for what purpose is compromised, our work force is stressed, the things that define our nation, our traditions and ideals, are blurred, creating divisions rather than unity. We are the United States but we have always considered ourselves American. Our nation is unique and special to us. We want the people who come here to assimilate and embrace the values and ideals that make this a great nation. When foreign workers take American jobs how long will it be before the welcome mat is trashed and divisions become tense. We are a generous people but there are limits to what we can do.
When politics and power drive immigration policy it’s bound to create tensions and division.
Food for thought…..
America was a leader in innovation, we had scientists, engineers, ect ect. We still do. Although a for profit focus on education is threatening our future …..we still have some of the best.
Why would we allow any Politician Dem or Rep explain away these visas are needed so we can import knowledge? What a flipping spin from the America I remember where foreigners fled to our Universities and knowledge.
It’s a bunch of crap. When it comes down to it both parties have moved beyond caring about the people. Are we going to allow them to divide us while they raid the very soul of our country using innovation created by Us?
I believe votes like this are as a result of a very misguided conclusion on the part of the establishment Republicans. They’ve listened to the main-stream-media and analyzed the low ratings of the Congressional approval polls and have come up with the conclusion that their job is to “reach across the aisle” and compromise their values because that is what is necessary to insure voters like them. They are following the lead of the Democrats and have succumbed to the idea that it is more important to be liked and elected than it is to do the “right thing”. Doing the “right thing” is too difficult and too risky and could be spun to make them look bad in the eyes of the voters. It is sad to see that the execution of government become a popularity contest just like elections. This is not how Congress was designed to work.
Congressional approval polls seem to be low because of a misconception on the part of the voters. They seem to think Congress is not doing their job when bills don’t get passed. They seem to think that Congress is not doing its job if they can’t come to a full agreement. This misconception seems to be fueled by the main –stream-media’s focus on controversy and their spin on the motives of the Congressmen and Congresswomen; particularly the motives of the Republicans. Congress is supposed to be confrontational. Controversial bills are supposed to be contentiously debated. Controversial bills are not supposed to be passed. Only those bills that provide enough common ground to be acceptable to majorities of both parties should be passed and made law. This is the filter that is supposed to make sure that laws are not passed that are not addressing the common good of all people in the country. It is Congresses job to modify the content of the bill until the bill is acceptable. If this cannot be accomplished the bill should “die”. Congress is doing its job when it doesn’t pass a bill just as much as when they do. They are not doing their jobs when Congressional members compromise their ideals just to get a bill passed for appearance purposes or for a special deal for their constituents. When they do that we end up with bad laws! Instead they need to hold their ground. Very controversial bills should not be passed unless what makes them controversial can be removed or modified to reduce or eliminate the controversy.
A major problem with bills that are coming though congress these days is they are huge in content and not specific in focus. The bills are thousands of pages long containing provisions and riders that have nothing to do with the original bill. This practice is about as dishonest as you can get. The intent is to get a provision passed that could not pass on its own. If it is attached to a popular bill any opposition to the bill (because of the provision) can be “spun” by the provision supporters (and the media) to make it look like the opposition is not in support of the original popular bill. This practice needs to be outlawed! When the founding fathers envisioned how Congress would work I don’t think they had any idea that this would be a standard practice. Of course, back then all bills were hand written and as such were short and specific.
Here are a few ideas that I think would improve congress;
1. There should be limits on the size of a bill. If a bill cannot be written in a specific number of pages it needs to be broken up into multiple bills, or sub-bills. I realize that this is somewhat arbitrary but also I believe it would cause bill authors to partition their bills into sections based on acceptability. There would be a separate vote on each sub-bill so we the people would know where each Congress member stands on each sub-bill. The author of the bill could designate that sub-bills are dependent on each other. In other words they could designate that a sub-bill is not law even if it gets passed unless another sub-bill is also passed. This may sound like we are getting back to the huge bill issue again because it ties them together but I think this is necessary, and we would have voting records for each of the sub-bills so we know where each congress member stands. I believe this would allow for the agreeable parts of bills to be passed and eliminate bad provision and would make it so all Congress members were accountable for their votes.
2. There should be limits on the focus of a bill. There would have to be some specific thread that ties them together. If not, they cannot be part of the same bill.
3. The powers of the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority leader to determine what bills come to a vote should be greatly reduced. The current situation gives far too much power to one man (in each house).
I could go on and on…. but I’m going to stop here. Jack, Tina, how about a discussion on how to improve Congress?