Can you believe that a committee in our state lege has issued a report that claims illegal immigration is at least partly the result of a “welfare culture” and…Wait for it…Abortion.
Of course, the Democrats in the state House of Representatives gave this silliness precisely the credence it deserves…None. The six Democrats on the Special Committee on Immigration Reform refused to add their signatures to those of the ten Republicans who signed the report. Instead, the six Democrats issued a letter to Ed Emery, the Republican chair of the committee. The letter issued by the Democrats said the final report included “information” that was never discussed in committee as well as other comments that were inappropriate.
The lack of a traditional work ethic, combined with 30 years of abortion and expanding liberal social welfare policies have produced a shortage of workers and a lack of incentive for those who can work. Todays growing affinity for government dependency has created a class of potential employees who are not eager to work.Here it is important that I remind you all that the Republican speaker of the Missouri House is a former welfare recipient himself. Rod Jetton had other priorities than supporting his support his wife and child for five full years, yet now he slams everyone else who receives assistance at every turn as lazy and lacking in a work ethic. Apparently the Rod Jetton family is the only Missouri family that has ever been worthy of public assistance.
The Publicans on the committee (specifically Ed Emery who injected his own wacky views into the report) really reached to come up with this one, and in the process made us look like morons in the eyes of the nation. Reasonable people simply aren’t able to make the leap of illogic required to come to such a stupid position. But the fever-swampers of the Missouri GOP have never been known for their keen intellectual prowess and powers of deductive reasoning.
Perhaps the Missouri lege didn’t get the memo, but there was a welfare reform bill passed a decade back (under a Democratic president) that changed the structure of welfare and emphasized welfare to work. Benefits terminate after a set period of time. I do believe Rod Jetton is lucky he was a welfare slug when he was, because he would have exhausted his eligibility before he finally got off his ass, he failed to provide for his family for so long.
Now, instead of having a real job he is a state legislator so I am still subsidizing his family and putting food on his table through my tax dollars.
As to abortion, oh good Ford, I don’t even know where to start. Illegal immigrants come here because we are missing workers? The Republicans in the state house seem to labor under the misconception that because it’s legal it happens, and wouldn’t if it wasn’t.
Newsflash guys – abortion happens whether it is legal or not. If prostitution is indeed the worlds oldest profession, abortionist is the second oldest. They may as well blame contraception for illegal immigration. After all, contraception prevents the birth of a hell of a lot more workers from being born than abortion does.
To top it all off, interjecting that bit of editorializing about abortion into the final report diminished half of the citizens of the state to brood-mare status.
First off, Immigration is a federal issue…Missouri, right smack in the middle of the United States, has no border to secure, unless we are looking at an invasion of Arkansans. Second, they insulted their electorate. We know what work is, unlike the Missouri Speaker of the House, thank you very much. (also unlike the Speaker of the Missouri House, my family has always provided for ourselves and never asked for welfare, so I will batter him about the head and shoulders with his hypocrisy at every possible turn.) Third, immigration to our state does not result from the fact that some Missouri women had abortions 20-30 years ago; it is driven by the miserable state of the economy of Mexico and other Latin American countries. Duh.
Tamar Jacoby is a nationally renowned authority on immigration and she dismissed the Missouri report as silly. Being sane and intelligent, she separates the wheat from the chaff. Americans today are more educated. In 1960, approximately 40% of all American males dropped out of high school and pursued non-skilled labor jobs. Now only about 10% of American males drop out, but those unskilled jobs still must be done, and immigrants fleeing economic hardship fill in those gaps. (Now doesn’t that sound more reasonable? Of course, no one ever accused the Missouri lege of being reasonable. Molly Ivins only thinks the Texas lege is entertaining. The Missouri lege makes the Texas lege look like a world-renowned think-tank.)
True to form, the Publicans on the committee totally disregarded the input of the Democrats and did not include their main concern – that the first and most effective step to curtailing illegal immigration should be to crack down hard on the employers who hire undocumented workers. Reasonable people realize that this is the logical place to start, but the Publicans on the committee (no one ever accused them of being reasonable) are reluctant to create an “anti-business climate” in the state.
See what I deal with every day? It’s no wonder my friends on the Political Animal website on occasion give me a (good natured) hard time and call me a “hayseed from Missouri” and it is why every now and then I get an email from Pale Rider laying out the case why I should move to a blue state like Minnesota where I could do research at Mayo and be appreciated; rather than branded a mad scientist and a wacky liberal and even get the occasional threat. Some days, I seriously think about it.
Then I think about it some more and I decide I need to stay here (at least for now) because this is where the fight is. I have roots here and my husband’s family has been here since the state was a territory. I’m just not willing to cede Missouri to the wingnuts. Not yet, anyway, so for now at least, I will stay and tilt at those windmills.
