S. 1035--A Band-Aid on Cancer

Sen. Charles Grassley has recently written letter to the Senate Majority Leader and Speaker Pelosi promoting some legislation he's supporting--S.1035, which is supposed to lower the level of H-1b fraud.

The thing is, a program like H-1b will inevitably displace US workers unless it is very carefully structured. Competent oligarchs in countries like Singapore manage guest worker programs with a degree of careful structure. A similar program for a democratic nation will require even more care.

The fundamental problem is that each H-1b visa has a market value of around $50,000. When something that valuable is given to companies free of charge, they rapidly become addicted to this corporate welfare--and learning to live without that corporate welfare will be very difficult for the companies involved.

All S. 1035 does is raise the bar for abuse--and focus the corporate welfare aspect of guest worker visas abuse.