The American Spectator

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(Page 7 of 13)

What he advocates is politically impossible. The Illegals will never return to their home countries unless forced to do so. The Left wants them here to turn the United States into the Socialist Paradise Mr. Bethell used to call home in England. The Business Class (Merchants) want them here to have a serf underclass so they can still compete in the global economy they unwittingly created when they moved manufacturing out of the USA in their idealistic pursuit of non existent "Free" trade. And the Unions want them in the hope that they can recruit them and return to the glorious days of yesteryear. And their interests like the mythical reptilian hair of the Gorgons are intricately entwined.

We do appreciate what we have. We appreciate how long and how much effort it took to get here. We don't want to lose it and leave our children and grandchildren with a culture like the one Mr. Bethell escaped from.

I would indeed like him to write that article on our "home-grown trust fund socialists" (like Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose family owned garment manufacturing sweat shops in Scranton, Pa. and North Carolina) since so many of them are third and fourth generation descendants of the robber barons and in addition to clipping their coupons still own and/or have interests in businesses throughout the northeast and the rest of the U.S. and favor the use of the cheap labor they can get from the illegals. You know, $8.00 an hour, no benefits, no limits on overtime etc. The jobs that Americans won't do. It should be interesting and enlightening.

And another thing, and I am very serious here; I would also like to see him write an article on Thomas Jefferson's dictum, "Merchants have no allegiances."

I don't live too far from Gouldsboro, Pa. which is in the western reaches of the Pocono Mountains and near the birthplace of Jay Gould, the quintessential robber baron. He is alleged to have said that he could "hire half of the working class to kill the other half of the working class." That, in a nutshell, is about what the last 150 years of the economic history of the USA has been about.

Jay Gould would roll over in his grave if he knew that the Pocono's are now predominately populated by both middle class retirees and refugees from the New York metropolitan area who commute to their jobs in New York City and the moribund municipalities that surround it. It is a middle class that he and his robber baron colleagues tried their best to strangle at birth.

p>We do know what we have here in the United States and believe me, we appreciate it and we don't want to lose it. NAFTA, the myth of "free" trade, Socialized Medicine and Illegal Immigration are all weapons used by the Merchant Class and the Left to destroy the middle class and the freedom it now enjoys. Yes it is, and has always been, and always will be a class war. br> -- Bob Keiser br> Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania /p>

The group of American citizens most adversely affected by illegal immigration is the poor and the lower-middle class. Although Democrat-Socialist -- Progressives ( commies?) In their delusions believe the welfare entitlement -pie is infinite. The reality is quite different. There are limits, and the limits translate into long waits in the entitlement line. Illegal immigrants are cutting in front of the line, demanding their "rights" to a piece of the entitlement pie. Poor Americans can point to their American ancestors who built this country as the basis for their earned right to the pie. What legacy "rights" can illegal immigrants claim?

The delusion is that illegal immigrants pay state and federal income taxes. Not true. They may be nickel-and-dimed into sales taxes and cigarette taxes, and gas taxes etc., but not income taxes or FICA per se.

Because illegals depress wages, poor Americans are forced out of the labor market. The "day laborers" (illegal immigrants) are paid in cash. Their employers pay neither FICA, State nor Federal withholding, Workman's Comp etc., and these employers save a bundle in fixed hidden costs. If these illegals become quasi-legal what was once a good deal on cheap labor is no longer, now that those hidden costs must be paid for... Eight dollars an hour now becomes twelve dollars an hour. Now there is a new need for more illegal cheap labor. The proverbial dog chasing its tale.

Once the illegals become quasi-legal, they do not pay taxes, because for all intents and purposes they are low skilled, low paid wage earners. They are now entitled to what is known as the "Earned Income Tax Credit." This translates into a transfer of taxes from the American middle class to these new poor. These new semi-citizens are also eligible for food stamps, WIC, subsidized housing, subsidized utility bills, subsidized transportation costs, and in most likelihood they still won't buy car insurance.

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