Romney's pattern of
donations suggests that he may indeed have been slightly
more restrictive on immigration than the average
congresscritter. His GPA on overall immigration, based
on a weighted average of his donations, is 2.28. The
congressional average is 2.0.
But that isn’t
saying much. Strychnine may kill more slowly than
cyanide—but ingesting either will kill you quite
effectively.
And Romney’s record
on H-1b indentured
guest worker visa expansion appears looser than
average, judging by his donations—with an academic
probation GPA of 1.64.
It should be noted
that the consultancy he was closely associated with,
Bain and Company,
hired 572 H-1b workers in 2001-2003.
Romney has
developed the habit of
talking tough about immigration. He must, to
differentiate himself from McCain and Giuliani.
However, I must disagree with
Joe Guzzardi's
judgment that Romney's record on immigration is
“good”. For example, Romney did very little to
address seriously the problem of illegal employers while
he was governor of Massachusetts.
While Romney has
recently attacked
Rudy Giuliani for being Mayor of a Sanctuary City,
Boston was also a
sanctuary city during his term as governor. It
wasn't
until near the end of his term, when he was already
thinking about national office, that he signed an
agreement with the federal government to allow thirty
Massachusetts State Troopers to be trained in
immigration enforcement.
What I see instead is
someone who will seize on high profile aspects of the
immigration issue—but still tries to appeal to both
sides. It is as though Mitt, like his
father
before him, just
isn't used to a situation
where
what he says
will be
looked at closely.
Is there really any
reason to assume that that Romney will not support
higher real levels of (legal) immigration, possibly
through “guest worker” programs that allow fewer
political rights and civil liberties for those allowed
to immigrate,
and greater overall concentration of wealth in America?
Romney's attitude
towards those that are
forced to delay—or avoid—having families due to the
decrease in wages and
living standards that immigration produces is rather
cold and based on inaccuracies:
It seems that Europe
leads Americans in this way of thinking. In France,
for instance, I’m told that marriage is now frequently
contracted in seven-year terms where either party may
move on when their term is up. How shallow and how
different from the Europe of the past.
[Romney
Reaches to the Christian Right |In a
Conservative Crowd, Candidate Talks About Marriage,
Child-Rearing By Perry Bacon Jr. Washington Post,
May 6, 2007]
My emphasis. France
does not, in fact, have term marriages.
And Romney, despite
his recent contradictory statements, endorsed a massive
amnesty of illegal aliens in 2006:
"I don't believe in
rounding up 11 million people and forcing them at
gunpoint from our country," Romney said. "With these 11
million people, let's have them registered, know who
they are. Those who've been arrested or convicted of
crimes shouldn't be here; those that are here paying
taxes and not taking government benefits should begin a
process towards application for citizenship, as they
would from their home country. "Romney
supports immigration program, but not granting 'amnesty'",
By Evan Lehman, Lowell Sun, March 30, 2006
Remember, those
immigration rights don't come for free. As I have argued
before, American citizenship has a quantifiable
value—which a loose immigration policy devalues, just a
public company that issues additional stock can
“dilute” the value of stock already issued. Romney
has no plan on how to maintain the
value of
American citizenship—or handle the incentives for
further illegal immigration his proposals create.
My take as a member
of the
VDARE.COM Progressive Caucus: It
simply doesn't occur to Romney that
those of enormous wealth are affected
differently by immigration than working Americans.
At least until very recently, his stance was in effect
serving a
wealthy elite, with which he
identifies far more strongly than he identifies with
America as a whole.
Real American
leaders like
Jefferson or
Franklin would fear this man.
Romney is a man of
considerable natural gifts born to enormous privilege.
It is sad that he is so unfeeling towards the nation
that gave him so much.
What I find
especially difficult to deal with is his hypocrisy.
Romney
claims to be
pro-family, but he promotes the concentration of
wealth that makes
affordable family formation less likely. It is
simply revolting to see a man born to wealth and
privilege promoting policies that will
deny many poor people the chance to be part of a
stable family. (And which, by the way,
systematically increase the level of
abortions in the country.)
I might cut Romney some slack if he were really looking at developing
that pioneering aspect at the root of his Mormon (LDS)
heritage. The
heroic story of Mormonism was making the desert of Utah
bloom. We live in an era where this could be done
elsewhere—say developing the ocean deserts
agriculturally, or
developing space the way Princeton professor
Gerard O'Neill proposed. But I don't see Romney
taking America in that kind of direction.
I might cut him
some slack if I didn't think he was bright enough to
connect the dots.
This hypocrisy and
lack of vision and empathy is the reason we are seeing
traditionally obedient
LDS youth starting to
seriously question their elders.
I hope that
rebellion cleans house.
Randall Burns [email him]
holds a
degree in Economics from the University of Chicago. He
works in the information technology sector and is a
graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. Burns
has been active in furthering the introduction of
immigration, trade, and tax realities into the
progressive agenda. In 2004, he helped create the Kucinich campaign’s position paper on
H-1b/L-1 visas.
