Sirotablog
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. David writes about political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties.
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October 23, 2007 9:09 AM
H-1Bs And the Triumph of Buypartisanship
To really see the sheer corruption of our political process, you have to look at the lies that simply refuse to go away in the face of overwhelming facts - the myths that are utterly and completely untrue, yet which are regarded as unchallenged truth in Washington because they serve to rationalize Big Money's agenda.
Regular readers of this my writing know that two of those lies are the Great Education Myth and the Great Labor Shortage Lie. The first says that if only Americans obtained more skills and education, they would be able to obtain high-paying jobs. The second says that America faces a shortage of workers, which requires companies to import workers from abroad. Both of these fables have been thoroughly debunked by economic data and economic analysis from across the political spectrum.
The Great Education Myth and the Great Labor Shortage Lie converge in the debate over H-1B visas - the visas that the American government gives to corporations allowing them to import high-skilled workers from abroad. Lobbyists and the Members of Congress they have bought push for more H-1B visas by claiming that because Americans are not properly educated, they don't have the skills needed for high-tech jobs, and thus, there is a shortage of domestic high-tech workers to fill such jobs.
Again, this rationale has been exposed as a fraud. Duke University researchers this year definitively proved that there is, in fact, no shortage of engineers in the United States. Rochester Institute of Technology professor Ron Hira has published a study proving that the H-1B program accelerates job outsourcing. His study was verified by data showing that the companies that most use the H-1B program are those whose whole business is outsourcing. Meanwhile, top corporate lawfirms - hired by the very companies lobbying for more H-1B visas under the guise of the Great Labor Shortage Lie - have been caught on tape running seminars on how to abuse the H-1B system as a tool to lower American workers' wages, which the data again shows is exactly what the program does.
Yet, despite all of the facts and despite the 2006 election that saw Democrats promise to defend the economic interests of America's middle class, we get this story from Roll Call today:
"A key bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing for enacting a short-term boost in immigration visas by the end of the year...A letter from the New Democrats signed by 16 Members to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday urged a significant boost to the numbers of visas allowed for tech workers, nurses, agricultural workers and seasonal workers to alleviate a crush of demand from employers. The technology industry in particular has been vocal about its desire to expand the H-1B visa program for highly skilled immigrants...The push to add visas for high-tech workers has support even among some House Republicans...House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) was among the 30 Republicans who signed a letter to Pelosi earlier this month calling for cutting red tape so that high-tech companies can get the workers they need. The Republican letter...said lawmakers should 'find a way to ensure that America continues to attract the best and brightest minds from around the world' and allow companies to do so 'without unnecessary delays and waiting periods.'...The New Democrats, meanwhile, have already had meetings with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.) in which they've made it clear that expanding visas is a top priority."
Understand how much of an admission of sheer corruption this really is. The United States Congress cannot find the courage to pass a comprehensive, humane immigration policy because both parties are polarized. Yet, the one immigration issue they can all come together on is a push to expand a visa program that the data definitively proves is designed to help tech companies (which are huge campaign contributors) drive American wages into the ground, exploit foreign workers, and accelerate job outsourcing. Most disgusting of all, this push is happening all under the guise of verifiable and is being championed by a group of Democratic lawmakers whose own fundraising arm brags in public newsletters about bringing together tech industry lobbyists and lawmakers at lavish bayside retreats.
This has, of course, become par for the course in this Congress. Democrats won Congress in 2006 on a promise to oppose NAFTA-style trade agreements. Yet with Congress unable to pass much of anything, they are edging closer to finding consensus on passing - shocker! - a whole new package of lobbyist-written NAFTAs. Congress cannot pass progressive tax reform to help the middle class, but as the Wall Street Journal today reports, Democrats are moving towards endorsing a plan to slash corporate tax rates.
As Congressional Quarterly reported this week, K Street lobbying firms are now staffed up with former Democratic congressional staffers. As all of this shows, they are verifying what Leo Hindery told me in my most recent nationally syndicated newspaper column: "The wealthy are now a political constituency unto themselves that is decidedly nonpartisan."
Hindery calls it "nonpartisan" - I call it buypartisan. Whatever you want to call it, it is fueled by the very corruption we are seeing on trade, taxes and now on immigration. This is the Democratic Party of Washington, D.C. - a party that seems more and more comfortable selling out the middle-class to make corporate lobbyists happy.
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About David Sirota
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hostile Takeover. He lives in Denver, Colorado. His daily blog can be found at CREDO Action. He contributes regularly to the Denver Post's Web site, is a senior editor at In These Times magazine and is working on his second book. He has been profiled in Newsweek and the Rocky Mountain News and is widely known for his reporting on political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties. Sirota serves as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a 501(c)3 organization that supports state legislators and that is a partner of CREDO.
You can subscribe to Sirota's e-mail newsletter by going to davidsirota.com and signing up in the lefthand corner. To find out more about Sirota, download his official biography or see his recent media appearances. You can e-mail him at sirota@credoaction.com.
The views expressed on this blog are his own, and do not necessarily represent the views of Working Assets (publisher of CREDO Action) or the institutions Sirota works for.
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Discussion
Both Pelosi and Hoyer along with the NewDems ought to be put in GITMO and waterboarded for the next decade for the damage they are doing to this country. Its nothing short of treason.
They are no different than Hastert, DeLay and Lott.
Enemies of the people.
And where are all the major Left Liberal Blogs while this wholesale corruption of Democratic Party is going on???
crickets chirping
DailyKos?
crickets chirping
Eschaton?
crickets chirping
Hullabaloo?
crickets chirping
MYDD?
crickets chirping
TalkingPointsMemo?
crickets chirping
WashingtonMonthly?
crickets chirping
Matt Yglesias?
crickets chirping
ThinkProgress?
crickets chirping
HuffingtonPost?
crickets chirping
MoveOn?
crickets chirping
Really sad and pathetic.
None of these elitist Bourgeois blindly partisan online clowns are willing to condemn Democratic party corruption with one one thousandth of the vigor they attacked the Republicans. It sure as hell is not because the Democrats are a thousand times more virtuous. Don't they understand they risk losing most of their credibility? How do they expect the "TAPROOTS" to go door to door and phone to phone and sell the Democratic party to an increasingly and rightfully skeptically if not downright hostile public???
Bill Gates was Jack Abramoff's biggest client for years and made him a rich man. Well at least Abramoff while a whore knew how to bid up his price. We replaced a wildly corrupt greedy Republican male leadership in Congress so bunch of cheap sluts like Diane Fienstein, Barbara Boxer, Hillary, Nancy Pelosi, Maria Cantwell, Ellen Tauscher, Zoe Lofgren, Jane Harmon, Shelia Jackson Lee and many others can fall flat on their backs at greasy haired Bill's slightest wish and in effect screw over what remains of the American middle class.
As far as Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emmanuel, Chuck Schumer, Durbin, Obama and Harry Reid are concerned. They make a pretty good case for bringing back Hanged, Drawn and Quartered as a remedy for treason.
llamajock:
You give Bill Clinton way too much credit.
None of the either male or female Republi-lites in the legislative branch of the government are that impressed by him. What IS impressing them are the "campaign contributions" being liberally (the only liberal thing about that bunch) spread around by the Abramoff wannabes of K-street for their conscienceless corporate bosses.
It's not a spine these Republi-lites are lacking it's a conscience and a sense of right and wrong.
Butte,
I think you meant Bill Gates.
Perhaps I was bit too inside baseball. If anybody has been following the lobbying for the H1-B expansion they would know that Bill Gates has personally shown up on the capital three times in the last year to lobby for the H1-B.
The Democrats are so shamelessly corrupt as Sirota has pointed out that they have no problem being filmed by CSPAN literally swooning over the magnetism of the Greasy Haired Bill like he was Brad Pitt.
Such think!!! The Democrats are so wildly corrupt that Bill Gates no longer needs a Jack Abramoff to front for him. Bill Gates is able to do the lobbying in person in full public view at the savings of millions in lobbying fees that can instead find their way into Democratic campaign funds.
If you have any doubts about what I am talking about look at the CSPAN videos of Bill Gates's testimony before the House and Senate.
Check out the archive of Youtube postings by the inspiring anti STEM worker labor arbitrage activists Rob Sanchez and Bob Oak.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ZaZona
http://www.jobdestruction.info/ShameH1B/MediaClips.htm
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=RobertOak
Yes I will admit their a real difference between the Democrats and the Republicans when it comes their support of the H1-B. It is in the nature of their sleaziness. The Republicans are the guys who put up a big front about being righteous patriotic church goers while they sleep around with every prostitute they can find behind their spouses backs. The Democrats simply fornicate out in the open for all to see and pretend that nobody should at act like it is a big deal.
Don't forget that even the supposedly populist Democrats especially a few of the governors who ran a populist platform are falling for the H1B visa SCAM ! The only way to wiggle out of buypartisanship is to start heading 3rd party or even 4th party as Nader would call it.
A shortage of nurses, indeed. With the defunding of community colleges, MORE AND MORE APPLICANTS are studying every free minute, for years, in preparation for the competition for FEWER AND FEWER NURSING SCHOOL SLOTS.
And here's some of Australia's visa nurses' experiences:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/investigations/nightmare-for-nurses/2007/01/30/1169919336319.html
A shortage of nurses, indeed. With the defunding of community colleges, MORE AND MORE APPLICANTS are studying every free minute, for years, in preparation for the competition for FEWER AND FEWER NURSING SCHOOL SLOTS.
And here's some of Australia's visa nurses' experiences:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/investigations/nightmare-for-nurses/2007/01/30/1169919336319.html
robert beal,
Thanks for bringing this up. There are over 50,000 highly qualified applicants each year for nursing schools who are rejected due to a lack of funding for expansion for enrollment opportunities.
During last June's "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" debate, Byron Dorgan, Bernie Sanders and even "gulp" Jeff Sessions formed the best tag team outside of the WWF to drive these points home. Folks forget that after years of attempting to create new specialized immigration visa programs like the H1-C for nursing which were realitively easily defeated, the Cheap Labor lobby changed course and pinned their hopes on a radical expansion of H1-B visa program. Folks do not realize the H1-B can be used for any job position the employer petitions he needs filled.
The calls today for H1-B expansion are really a way to allow this program to be used for the importation of cheap labor for professions where it has of yet to have had limited impact. The
main targets now are nursing, medical technicians and believe it or not special and secondary education.
What gets me about the H1-B program is that there are far more tech workers than IT executives. And, those tech workers are far more likely to vote Democratic than the mostly Republican IT executives. However, our Democratic leaders are listening more to these Republican IT executives than their Democratic constituents. It astounds me.
If they create a sub-class for underpaid workers in America to do jobs we all supposedly don't want to do then it won't be long before Americans are pushed into this sub-class.
If they create a sub-class for underpaid workers in America to do jobs we all supposedly don't want to do then it won't be long before Americans are pushed into this sub-class.
If they create a sub-class for underpaid workers in America to do jobs we all supposedly don't want to do then it won't be long before Americans are pushed into this sub-class.
Here is a good proposal that both parties should be support. Some employers prefer non-documented workers over citizens and others because the non-documented will not complain about employers’ violations. The law should state that if anyone complains to authorities of illegal actions by employers no one should in any way be brought to the attention of immigration authorities because of such a complaint.
As to trade, when dollars go to foreigners they might use them to buy pre-existing American capital assets rather than make purchases that create jobs for Americans. The Dow can go up, but so does unemployment. Our laws should forbid foreigners to buy pre-existing American capital assets. (See http://journals.aol.com/jdmar55, look for “Keynes is Ignored, Final Segment,” (Internation Trade chapter.))
Ultimately, there is little if anything that can or will be done by either party. Most all legislators are "owned" by special interests and the corporate world. There may still be a legally recognized "United States of America" but the borders were obliterated long before folks crawled under fences. Money is the supreme ruler of the world and placing blame is a senseless exercise.
As a analyst/programmer/tech who can not find a job in the field, this galls me to no end. It wasn't bad enough to out source all the entry level jobs to Asia. Now all the mid level analyst, engineering and design are being given to foreigners who are imported. Not only does this depress wages, it displaces workers with American citizenship and competent skills.
Until some action is taken to dis empower corporate entities, we have nothing but corporate run government.
Who the he!! are the 'New Democrats'? How do I find out how to contact them to give them a piece of my mind!
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