Cutting Through the Shit of the Debate on Immigration:

Before getting to my post, I just created an RSS feed for my blog. I encourage all interested to take advantage of this. Also I have added a counter. It may have unimpressive figures at first, but I won't give up until it does.

With that said, I briefly want to discuss the issue of illegal immigration. I want to discuss this mostly because Bill O'Reilly is on his bi-monthly jihad to expose the horror. Bill O'Reilly repeats a lot of plain false arguments made about this issue. The first and most egregious is the "cost" of illegal immigrants. Often times we are given the grave amount of money that illegal immigrants cost in state and federal programs like education and various forms of healthcare. O'Reilly recently put the figure at $68 billion every year, citing a Columbia University study.

I have a couple of responses to this. First of all, most illegal immigrants pay taxes, they pay sales tax, they pay income tax, and they pay payroll taxes. Assuredly some work under the table, but evading taxes is a crime the government enforces, employing illegal immigrants is not, thus the number is not high. So returning to my argument, while they may "cost" billions, they also pay taxes. To put it another way, the American people "cost" our country trillions in various programs, which are paid for with, their taxes. Now assuredly few illegal immigrants migrate if they are wealthy, so with the progressive system of taxation they do not totally pay for themselves, but neither do most people.

But illegal immigrants do have a net gain for the United States, while we are on the topic of costs. Right now when an illegal immigrant signs up for a job, they either provide a bogus Social Security Number or the expired number they were given when they had a green card. Either way, billions goes to the Social Security fund, never to be taken out. This is a net gain for the American worker, the American retiree, and the American taxpayer. So if anyone attempts to couch their views on immigration in "costs" they are wrong.

The next frequent argument is the issue of jobs. That these migrant workers pay for little to no money, taking jobs away from hard working Americans. This is not true. Globalization and free trade have been an overwhelming net gain for the United States for the same reason that having cheap migrant workers is a net gain. Sure some may lose their job who were getting 15 dollars an hour to pick vegetables, but if a couple of thousand people lose their job there, go get retrained, and the price of vegetables is able to drop, meaning more people can buy more vegetables, then all have benefited. This is why protectionists are always wrong. This is why Wal-Mart is really something that is good for poor people (but I will probably be writing more about this in the future).

Now, the brand new argument recently made about illegal immigration is on the issue of terrorists crossing the borders. Bill O'Reilly makes the unsubstantiated claim that, "thousands of Middle Eastern people have gotten into the USA via the southern border." This is of course unsubstantiated. But is just a bad argument when looked at more closely. First of all, if a terrorist from the Middle East desperately wants to get into the United States they will. It does not matter how much we reform our system of immigration. Unless the United States wants to pull a 15th century China and isolate itself from the rest of the world, we are going to have to assume that 20 people can get into the United States if they desperately want to, not to mention that terrorist groups would have no problem recruiting just 10-20 Americans already in the country to do their bidding. This is why the obvious and much more effective way for fighting terrorism is not to shut down our borders, but instead to strike at the cause of terror, this is of course an argument that George Bush made over and over again, I am sure Bill O'Reilly bought it then (at least I bought it and still do).

So where does this leave us? Well I think the chief reason Bill O'Reilly and many of his kind hate illegal immigration is because it is illegal. Because people are breaking the law and creating all of these harms that they have manifested it causing. Should we have a debate in this country on the merits of immigrants, the level of their presence, and the fluidity of our borders, both to the north and south? Absolutely, but when it is couched as a debate on terrorism and economics, it skews the issue. So lets all contemplate while I finish up midterms.

-Mr. Alec

Why we ough to keep our eye on Arnold:

I am going to talk about Arnold Schwarzneger today because I think he is proposing a lot of really great things in California that I have argued vehemently for with anyone that would listen. The two moves that look best to me are merit pay for teachers and independent redistricting. Of course everyone is going ape-shit in California and this will be a very interesting test for Arnold as well as for the rest of the country.

First, redistricting: Gerrymandering is no old topic, it has been around for centuries, the only problem is that it has become much easier. See there is a set of programs called Geographic Imaging Systems (or GIS, I did a lot of Geologic mapping using this type of program) and they are incredibly powerful, and essentially allow any well funded political party to pay a teenage computer geek to mess around with one of these programs and "optimize" the congressional districts. This is why redistricting has become such a prominent issue, because a computer and a nerd can do what prior took thousands of hours, tape, glue, maps, imperfect statistics, etc. This is why there are districts in Florida that jump across bodies of water or are never wider than 4 miles and do not even get me started on the horror that is Texas' congressional districts (not that Democrats were the innocent ones in that crazy situation, seeing as they had been gerrymandering for decades, LBJ style).

So what is the harm of gerrymandered districts? Well chief among them is that Congressman no longer have to run for their position seeing as their district doubles as their own party. This in turn creates a polarized legislature, representing extreme interests, not the overwhelming Middle American (or ever-expanding number of voters registered as "Independent). David Broder likened Congress to the US version of the House of Lords. Oddly enough the Senate is the legislative body that more effectively represents the feelings of the United States and where incumbents actually lose. Of course this was not the purpose of the Senate, but luckily the political parties have not figured out how to redistrict States.

Second on Arnold's agenda is teacher's unions and merit pay. I think this is a fabulous idea. It only takes a basic knowledge of a market to understand why this is necessary. Obviously people who have a MA in Physics or Chemistry have no incentive to give up tons of pay to teach, whereas the tradeoff for people with expertise in English is not nearly the same. This is why I always had fabulous English and Social Studies teachers throughout High School and why I never once had a good science teacher. My opinion is that the teacher's unions can go shove it. The US is seriously lacking adequate science teachers and there is no excuse for this. I am especially bitter about this (and I came from a town whose per capita income rivals Lichtenstein). Many are luckily if they just get that one great science teacher and Arnold is doing a service to the students of California's public schools by attempting to teacher's get paid what they are worth.

This matters because these are two desperately required reforms that could sweep across the country if California successfully implements them (just like the tax revolution started there in 1978, not necessarily for better in California, but nonetheless). Two very important reforms that, in my opinion Arnold is very brave to propose (seeing as how they are not really popular in anyway). This situation also makes me think how California's crazy system of democracy might have some advantages (in the face of all historical parallels though).

-Mr. Alec

On Terri Schiavi - Why Bill Frist and Tom DeLay Can't Get Enough:

Alright, so I have not posted in a long time. And when I have it has been rather intermittently. People have complained, accused me of selling out, though most have said nothing. But before you turn your back on my blog I have a couple of excuses. First, the news has been extremely slow and though the Pope seemed like a great man, I have very little to say about him. In part news has been slow for about the past month or two, which is why I had a ridiculous number of posts on Terri Schavio, something I apologize for, though I hope they ended up being constructive in someway. Second, I have been very busy at school, though not incredibly, so that isn't the best excuse. Third, I have been blitzkrieging another individuals blog, one whom I went to high school with and whose politics, but more importantly, his style of politics I extremely dislike (his Daddy is an editor of the Weekly Standard). So in other words I am liberating his blog, one comment at a time.

Now, for actual blogging: One thing that has become increasingly clear is Bill Frist's intentions for the White House. Only someone as intelligent as I would hope he is, would make so many myopic decisions in such a short amount of time. First, Dr. Frist shares the Shameful Political Exploitation of Terri Schiavo award with Tom DeLay. Frist watched the video tapes of Mrs. Schiavo and then gave his medical opinion on the Senate floor, an opinion which clashed with all the analysis that doctors had provided over the 16 years this case has been in court, with 9 different judges. The Economist explains that, "Had he offered this medical opinion in court, he could have been sued." Strike one against Frist, this may win him the love of the religious right, but come an actual election, this would haunt him. I personally think this will all end up blowing up for the Republicans, but more on that later.

Second, Dr. Frist has become increasingly extreme in dealing with the Judges that Democrats keep blocking. According to The Washington Post he is likely to soon push for the "Nuclear" option in banning filibuster on for judicial nominations. Also, he is morphing this battle over the judges into a religious one. On Sunday he will appear in a web cast called "Justice Sunday" where social conservatives will lament how irreligious the judiciary is and make the Democrats out to be anti-religious bigots for blocking these judges (which is ridiculous considering only one of the blocked judges is all that religious). Frist is probably making this decision for two reasons, both of which make sense. First, demonizing the Democrats works (the Democrats use to do this on issues of Civil Rights, and quite well). But also this works in strengthening the Republicans chances in midterm elections (which will be crucial for Frist, losing the Majority would hurt big time) because playing the Democratic minority as too small plays against the natural American intuition that split government is inherently good (which is why midterm presidents almost always see their majorities lost in the House and Senate, and the Republicans playing this effective Democrats card enabled them to not fall as so many others have). But the second reason, and this plays more towards the filibuster issue is that Frist is coming from the Senate, he realizes that he can't be like John Kerry and speak Senate-eese, and hope that the American people will view him as a patrician. He has to get things done, speak effectiveness and action, and if he can do that while simultaneously playing to the Republican establishment (and lets face it, being the "Republican" candidate in the primaries gives you distinct advantages that Bush had 2000 against McCain).

So the repercussions of this: First, I do not think Bill Frist's moves will pay off. He just strikes me as too overtly political, and one thing Bush has always been amazing at, and in my opinion, genuine, is that religious beliefs are not for a political end.

Now the party wide repercussions: In my opinion the filibuster push has to be a bluff, it is just too insane and pointlessly divisive, not to mention how myopic it is. Any chance of Democrats ever working with Republicans (which isn't likely now anyways, but still, if Social Security is resurrected, it won't be changed without Democrats) will be gone, but also the Republicans must realize that they will not always be the majority party, and Democrats appoint Judges that they do not like. This was the reasoning John McCain used to explain why he would not vote for this change. If I were a Republican I would realize this and agree. But I think the repercussions of this extend past just this. I think lately the Republicans have been misreading the American people. The overwhelming majority of people were against Republican's personally reinserting Schiavo's feeding tube. The overwhelming number of people do not think Tom DeLay is infallible. The people also do not want to jump into Social Security reform (especially when it is something that has barely been debated or discussed).

The Republican's obviously have a tough group of people to hold together, but how they respond to the Tom DeLay situation, Social Security, and appointing Justices are going to be extremely important in determining the outcome of the midterm elections. These will also be the three areas that Democrats will capitalize on (of course they won't end up running for anything, just against things, which is a whole separate problem that needs serious rectification). So keep an eye on what happens, this is really a crossroads for the Republicans, and politics is extremely fickle. We'll see what happens...

NOTE: One last thing is that lately I have been talking a lot of problems with the Republican party. I want to note that I am focusing more on their strategy and attempting to explain the parties’ actions politically. Mostly I can do this because Democrats have done nothing since Kerry lost except try to stop stuff. One day, when I am done with that post on economics, which will lambaste them, though Republicans too, I can call myself "Fair and Balanced."

-Mr. Alec

PS One of my favorite scholars and journalists, Fareed Zakaria, now has a TV show which you can watch online. It is really great. Check out the link: www.foreignexchange.tv