Thread: Republicans urged to ignore business; immigration reform bad for workers

Republicans urged to ignore business; immigration reform bad for workers

bizjournals.com
Aug 21, 2014, 3:53pm EDT
Kent Hoover
Washington Bureau Chief

[IMG]http://media.bizj.us/view/img/3509761/10834921h1249086*304xx3000-2000-0-0.jpg[/IMG]
National Review Editor Rich Lowry says Republicans are "overinvested in the entrepreneurial idea" and should pay more attention to American workers.

Are Republicans “the party of business?” Maybe too much so, a prominent conservative suggested at a Heritage Foundation forum on border security and immigration reform.

“The Republican Party is overinvested in the entrepreneurial idea,” said Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, the magazine founded by conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr.

Yes, entrepreneurs are important, Lowry said, but there “also are people out there called workers.”

It’s past time for Republicans to realize that mass immigration is not good for American workers, and stop listening to big businesses that want to let more foreigners work in this country, he said.

“They love the idea of cheap labor,” Lowry said.

Then he unloaded on businesses that contend they can’t find enough workers for their jobs.

Anyone who says there are jobs that Americans won’t do “should be shot,” he said. Or hanged or thrown in the Potomac River, he added.

This rhetorical firebomb illustrates the schism in the Republican Party over immigration reform. While some party leaders contend immigration reform is necessary, many rank-and-file Republicans don’t want any part of legislation that would legalize the status of people who entered the country illegally. They call that amnesty.

Plus, GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway said most voters favor policies that protect American workers from losing their jobs to immigrants, not allowing more immigration. If U.S. businesses have trouble finding workers, 75 percent of likely voters said businesses should raise their wages and improve working conditions to attract Americans to fill those jobs. Only 8 percent said more immigrant workers should be allowed in the U.S. to fill these jobs. That’s according to a survey of 1,001 likely voters conducted in July by Conway’s firm, the polling company, inc./WomanTrend.

Plus, more than 80 percent think Americans should be given an opportunity to do the jobs that currently are being performed by undocumented immigrants.

Some Republicans contend the party needs to support immigration reform to make inroads with Hispanic voters, but Conway contends that’s a misconception. Hispanics care about many issues, not just immigration reform, she said.

Lowry noted that President Ronald Reagan signed an immigration reform law in 1986, which included amnesty for undocumented immigrants, and Republicans’ share of the Hispanic vote went down in 1988, not up.

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After 28 years of promoting cheap labor for employers, one story does not mean a change in policy. For me they have to invest at least a quarter century in leading America away from their policies of 28 yrs. I turned 73 this week so I guess it is quite unlikely I will see if they mean it. Nope, republicans have not yet convinced me to come into their tent!!