Thread: Let the Voters Decide

Let the Voters Decide


By Charles Breiterman, Tuesday, September 15, 2009, 6:30 PM EDT

This blog is not a formal policy proposal by NumbersUSA. It represents my own ideas and conjectures.

Back in April of this year, many unions declared themselves in favor of legalization of the millions of illegal aliens residing in our nation. For the future, the unions called for "An independent commission to analyze the labor market's needs and assess shortages for the admission of future foreign workers." It seems the unions expect the commission to reduce the future supply of foreign workers who compete with union members for jobs.

Such a commission, or panel, would subject to enormous pressure, even bribery. Mass immigration is all about raising the supply of labor, which reduces the wage workers can demand for their services. It's like a wealthy friend of mine said when I brought up the subject of immigration a couple of years ago: "Yes! Keep the price of labor cheap!" That is an exact quote. For example, as of 2005, there were about 8 million people working illegally in the United States. If the cheap labor employers can reduce the going wage by $1 per hour, they save $8 million per hour, or $64 million per day, or almost $22 billion per year.

If the cheap labor employers are making so much money, giving bribes of $1 million or even $5 million to the members of the panel would be pocket change for them. Forming a commission that would rule on whether there is a need for foreign workers would be asking for corruption.

Is there any mechanism that could determine how many foreign workers are to be let in, yet not be subject to corruption? How about ?

Why not put it on the ballot for every presidential election? People would vote for the president, and then they would also vote for the number of people to be admitted to the United States each year for the next 4 years.

Here is how it might appear on the ballot, if an election were held tomorrow: The United States admitted 1.5 million foreign workers in 2008. What should the yearly number be for 2009-2012?

0
500,000
1 million
same as now
2 million
write in amount ___________



With electronic voting, people could actually type in the amount of people they think should be admitted to the United States, and the numbers could be added up and divided by the number of votes cast, all done very quickly by computer. In the past, the write in amounts would have had to be tabulated by hand. While some people might get confused and make a nonsensical vote, such votes will be canceled out by the 100 million other reasonable votes.

I just have a feeling that the outcome of the vote will be that employment based immigration is reduced to 0. This would silence all the people who claim that the American people want continued mass immigration. Even if my prediction is wrong, the vote will show what the American people really want.

I would add some flexibility to the law in order to protect the American worker. For every 1% the unemployment rate rises from the date of the election, the number of employment-based green cards and employment-based visas granted shall drop by 50%. That way, if we have a recession like the current one, employment-based immigration will drop to 0.

At current population and workforce levels, that means that if the unemployment rate rises by 1%, 1.55 million people will be out of work, but we will only decrease employment-based immigration by 750,000. That is not as stringent as some might like, however: (1) It is a lot better than what we have now! (2) I purposely made it like that because most of the people who will object to it as “too stringentâ€

Back in April of this year, many unions declared themselves in favor of legalization of the millions of illegal aliens residing in our nation. For the future, the unions called for "An independent commission to analyze the labor market's needs and assess shortages for the admission of future foreign workers." It seems the unions expect the commission to reduce the future supply of foreign workers who compete with union members for jobs.

These unions would trust an independent commission selected by who? Acorn members!

I agree. Let the people decide because that it who it affects the most.