Bush: Jobs Not Being Filled By Americans, So Guest-Workers Should Get Them

[Khephra]

"Our country must confront this basic fact: Jobs being generated in our growing economy are not being filled by American citizens, and these jobs represent an opportunity for workers who come from abroad, who want to put money on the table for their children," Bush said in remarks delivered by satellite to the group's annual convention.

"Yet, current law says to those workers, you must live in a massive, undocumented economy," Bush said.

"And so we've got people in America working hard who live in fear and who are often exploited, and this system isn't fair and it's not right."

"The reason I made this proposal is because it's humane," the president said. "It would bring millions of hardworking people out of the shadows of American life.

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1089369045165840.xml


First we start outsourcing, now we're going to be bringing people IN to this country to fill jobs? Would this be called "insourcing"?

Frankly, I've never heard of ANY job that some American citizen wouldn't take. This is such BS.

[Spinzonner]

1. Insource the bad jobs, Outsource the good

The Republican employment program

[LittleApple81]

2. Bush is such an idiot. But this, if publicized, is going to rattle his

base. They don't know what undocumented workers do and hate them anyway. Bush is really thrashing.

[kcwayne]

3. Maybe in Republican households parents just put money on the table

for their children. We have found that our daughter is much better off when we put food on the table, along with love, guidance, and concern for her well being.

George, children are not cost centers, you ignoramus.

[birdbrain]

4. WTF is he saying?

"Jobs being generated in our growing economy are not being filled by American citizens." Could it be because the pay is too low to live on? Or is he saying Americans are too lazy to work and like to be unemployed? He's said a LOT of stupid shit <understatement /> but this one takes the Cheneyin' cake!

[GiovanniC]

6. Man, He's Just Creating SO Many Jobs

That there aren't enough people to fill them. Don't you know?

The economy is BOOMING! Booming I say!

Our unemployment rate is in the RED! We have more jobs than people... must get more people!

[luaneryder]

5. An example of the "wonderful" jobs

being generated here in east TN/west NC: Christmas tree farms, tobacco fields. Locals don't want to do this type of work. It's hard, dirty, long hours. So, Mexican workers who are willing to get filthy for a little money to send back home fill these jobs. They live in run down cracker box houses or trailers and work from sunup to sunset. Yet, the locals complain bitterly about losing jobs to "those Mexicans."

[dumpster_baby]

13. Locals don't do because the pay is too low; pay is too low because ...

...the illegal laborers are flooding the labor market with cheap and desparate labor.

You know, it has to do with that whole supply-demand thing! Let me show you how it works: when the labor supply increases because dirt-poor and desparate illegal aliens move into the USA, then the subjective demand for labor decreases. THe subjective demand being representing by the number of job offers a typical worker in a particular field will receive.

ANd when the subjective demand decreases, the price decreases. The price decreases because the typical worker, having received fewer offers, will lower his price. THat is why these particular jobs pay little--because the labor supply increased. And that is why locals do not want these jobs--because the price paid for doing the job decreased. THey do not want them because the pay is too low.

Now, if the illegals were kept out of the U.S. labor supply by checking for SSN validity using computers, then the labor supply available to do this jobs would decrease, which increases the price. And then locals would want these jobs. THey would want these jobs because these jobs now pay a good wage. THey pay a good wage because the labor supply is tight with respect to the demand.

All part of the wonderful America that the Democrats and Republicans have built for us!

[gmoney]

7. Maybe if these jobs paid more than being on welfare...

...if it costs you money to take one of these jobs, who would do it? I know that's kind of a right-wing thing to say, but when employers structure jobs in such a way that you can't survive just holding one of these sub-McJobs, it's not surprising that "Americans" are not willing to take them.

I'd also bet that employers deem a lot of these unemployed Americans as "overqualified" meaning that they are highly likely to quit if they find a better job elsewhere. This is why there is such a huge interest among big business to have this huge underclass of unskilled labor who face language and cultural barriers that will FORCE them to stay in these crap jobs for a long time.

They don't want someone who's willing to pick fruit or mop floors for a couple months until they land that marketing job... they want people who are willing to do hard labor for nearly slave wages for the rest of their lives. Some sort of living wage regulation and the return of the 40-hour work week with benefits would fill every job in America with Americans very quickly.

Forget who originally posted this link, but it applies:
http://www.namebase.org/richnote.html

[SEpatriot]

8. Bush may be the first president working for the goal of full unemployment

Think about it. If you outsource enough, then bring a bunch of people in to take the jobs that "lazy Americans" apparently won't fill, eventually no American citizen will be working at all.

Even if the economy does add 2 million jobs by October 2004, Bush will still have presided over the only job-losing presidency since Herbert Hoover. Impressive, huh?

[colonel odis]

9. the point is to re-distribute the wealth in this country

upward.

so the haves keep getting more while the rest of us who've gladly put in 40 hours a week, saved a little here and there, and believed in the notion of upward mobility get screwed.

if an undocumented, illegal alien is willing to take $2 an hour for a job americans have been doing for $7 an hour, our government thinks it's perfectly acceptable to be on the side of owners, as opposed to workers, and support the people who'll take $2. then patronizingly tell americans they could have those jobs, too, provided they'll work for $2 an hour.

the purpose is to enrich business owners and keep good, fair wages out of the hands of average americans. in their eyes, we should rent houses from them, rather than own our own. our kids don't need to go go college; they weren't born in the right caste. cars? we don't need a new car every couple of years. if we want to drive a big, fancy car, maybe we can drive their limousines.

that disgusting attiitude is one of the hallmarks of this batch of republicans and about as anti-american as you can get. if thomas jefferson or andrew jackson could rise up from the grave, there'd be hell to pay.

[cthrumatrix]

10. this man is an idiot... a pure idiot

[HFishbine]

11. "Money on the table"?

I thought is was "food on their families."

[Brewman_Jax]

12. Time to outsource senior executive and CEO jobs

They make factors less overseas, act responsible for the company, and actually work.

[Mikimouse]

14. Keep the proletariat insecure and maintain a large reserve...

labor force (south of the border), then you can maximize profits and exploit the workers-sound familiar? I have often made the argument that there is a symbiotic relationship between the US and Mexico. Without the availability of cheap Mexican labor, many of the farms (especially in the south Texas Valley) would go belly up. See the McCarren-Walter Act of 1952, which was an anti-immigration law passed specifically to decrease the number of immigrants from Mexico. There is a carefully crafted rider in it that is called the Texas Proviso, which states that, contrary to the wording of the act (making it a felony to harbor illegal aliens), providing food, shelter, etc., to an illegal alien in Texas is not defined as harboring. Convenient, no? If one examines the situation carefully, one can see a Malthusian and Marxian symbiosis in the relatioinship between the US and Mexico. This benefits only the profiteers in the US, and results in the exploitation of both Mexican and US workers.

[porphyrian]

15. If Americans won't work for $2 an hour...

If I hear one more person spout this bullshit about there being plenty of jobs, I'm going to break something. Eliminating decent-paying full-time jobs with benefits and replacing them with twice as many part-time minimum-wage jobs is NOT job creation. And, just because those recently-laid off Americans don't jump at the chance to start at square one again and take those shitty part-time replacement jobs does NOT mean Americans don't want or need those jobs. We just don't want to get fucked twice by the same money-grubbing pieces of shit who just canned us and others like us. However, I don't know anyone who hasn't been steadily lowering their expectations as the bills keep rolling in. This is just a way for those assholes to get out of negotiating a decent wage for the labor they now want to pretend they care about. Fuck Bush.

[Hubert Flottz]

16. You said it Dimbo!

"And so we've got people in America working hard who live in fear and who are often exploited,"

That's us!

[SammyWinstonJack]

17. I thought it was.......

........."put food on your family?" Now it's "money on the table for their children?" :shrug: