January 21, 2003

U.S. Leaving First World

America has turned its back on Americans. Even illegal aliens count higher with the American government than native-born, taxpaying, loyal U.S. citizens, who are regarded by their government as nothing but resources to be exploited.

American taxpayers now are expected to shoulder the burden of paying for university educations for illegal aliens. When U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (R, Colo) said recently that illegal aliens should be deported, not given in-state tuition, Karl Rove, the Power Behind the Bush, told Mr. Tancredo never again to darken the steps of the White House.

The U.S. government is replete with hatred of everyone who sticks up for the rights of citizenship. The government steadfastly refuses to defend our borders. It is more important, says the government, to have cheap household help for elites, and an abundance of fast food workers to keep down the minimum wage, than it is to defend our country’s borders.

The INS refuses to deport alien criminals and issues visas to terrorists who wish to blow us up. Columnist and author Michele Malkin and the web site vdare.com have documented the complete failure of government to protect the meaning of citizenship.

Politicians, including President Bush, pander to illegals even more shamelessly than they pander to monied special interest groups. Campaign Finance Reform is a joke when illegal aliens vote and money from abroad affects election outcomes.

The government’s lack of loyalty to citizens has been noticed - not only by illegal immigrants who pour over our borders with rising expectations and demands, but also by U.S. employers.

If it is permissible for illegal aliens to take fast-food jobs away from U.S. teenagers and construction jobs away from U.S. construction workers, it is all right for H-1B visas to be issued to foreigners to take jobs away from American professionals.

Do you remember the “shortage” of computer software engineers, cooked up by corporations who wanted to replace American engineers by importing Indian and Chinese engineers at a fraction of the salary? This practice has been good for the bonuses of corporate CEOs, but today the young American software engineers who followed Warren Buffett’s advice to “invest in yourselves” are unemployed.

Now comes the “shortage” of nurses. Hospitals are under financial pressure from the requirement to provide medical care to immigrants and need to cut costs. Bringing in foreign nurses, who will accept low wages in exchange for U.S. residency, is one way to cut costs.

One can sympathize with the hospitals, which are forced to pay the cost of government’s failure to protect our borders. But let’s make sure we understand what those declaring a nursing “shortage” mean. They mean that there is a shortage of American-trained nurses willing to work at a “world wage,” which is an average of U.S. and Third World wages.

This is a clever way of creating a shortage. There definitely was a shortage of American software engineers at below American wage levels. That’s why the supply of computer engineers was expanded to include India and China.

Will your occupation be destroyed next? If software engineers can be imported, so can electrical, chemical, mechanical, and civil engineers. If nurses can be imported, so can doctors.

The list of occupations that can be destroyed by “internationalizing” the U.S. job market is long. Let’s focus instead on the occupations that will be most difficult for the government to destroy. Only two come readily to mind: school teachers and lawyers.

School teachers are protected because their union, the NEA, is the backbone of the Democratic Party. The teachers will not stand for their wages to be driven down with the argument that there is a teacher shortage that needs to be filled by importing teachers from abroad.

Lawyers are protected because of the obstacles of state bar exams. Moreover, the abundance of lawyers is such that no one would believe in a shortage.

Between the importation of foreign labor and the export of U.S. jobs, the future is not bright for young Americans. U.S. manufacturers, both labor intensive and high tech, are rapidly relocating offshore. The offshore flight takes with it design, engineering, and research and development jobs. Back office and clerical jobs are also being moved offshore.

If Wal-Mart has its way, nothing will be produced in America. The retailing giant wraps itself in the American flag, but gives its suppliers price targets. Suppliers find that in order to meet the targets, they must move production offshore.

Wall Street and lenders, such as GE Commercial Finance, pressure U.S. companies to outsource production to China in order to improve their margins.

Outsourcing to lower wage countries can be a solution for individual companies. But when all U.S. companies outsource, the implication is a population working for Wal-Mart selling foreign made goods.

Will America be a Third World country in 20 years?

Paul Craig Roberts is the author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.