Thread: Walker Stands Strong: Backs Up American Workers Against Open Borders Yet Again

by Matthew Boyle
24 Apr 2015
Washington, DC
517 comments

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker isn’t backing down about protecting American workers from the effects of out of control illegal and legal immigration, even as seemingly everyone from the Institutional Left to the mainstream media to the GOP Washington establishment has come after him.

In an interview with the Quad City Times in Iowa, Walker tripled down on the sentiment that American workers must come first when it comes to immigration levels—after doing so earlier this week in interviews with both Glenn Beck and Megyn Kelly.

“A couple years ago, when the unemployment rate was at incredibly high levels and labor participation was low, why would we want to flood the market with more workers? So that would be a time when you would have arguably less. As the unemployment rate goes down and labor participation rates go up, the two have to go hand in hand. Then it could be conceivably more than we have today. So it’s not a set number,” Walker said.

Walker, the paper wrote, added that his focus is on making sure people understand that immigration numbers are a “factor” in wages and employment levels.

“My focus on that isn’t an indictment on whether it is or isn’t [immigration pushing unemployment up or wages down],” Walker said. “It’s saying I think that should be a factor.”

In the interview with Beck, Walker noted how he’s spoken with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) on the matter—something he confirmed again to the Quad City Times, noting too that he’s spoken with many lawmakers and leaders about the issue.

“This is not me embracing any one particular lawmaker,” Walker said, with the paper writing that he “had visited border states and with employers in Wisconsin and across the country, as well as lawmakers,” and Walker saying that “Sen. Sessions being one of many” people he’s learned from on this issue.

Sessions has praised Walker’s stance, as has Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA), an economist who won his election against then House Majority Leader Eric Cantor by focusing almost exclusively on this issue.

“Even our side– the Republican side–we’re scared of our shadow, we’re especially scared of the 2016 presidential election,” Brat said when asked by Howie Carr, a Boston radio host who’s massively influential in New Hampshire, about Walker’s strong stance for American workers—and the attacks he was getting from the media.

The buzz is that we have this demographic issue with African American, Hispanic voters and instead of saying, ‘hey these are our brothers and sisters in the Judeo-Christian tradition…’ we back track on our first principles and pay attention to what some of the crony capitalists want and they want cheap labor. It’s just a bad brew… And the workers know it, but it all comes down to… the big money.

“Scott Walker seems to be true-blue from the midwest and… has fought hard for his state,” Brat added later in that Carr interview. “It seems like he’s a fighter and that’s what people sent me here for, I think that’s what they sent a lot of Congress here for– to fight against a lot of the destructive policies coming out of the Obama Administration. And we’re not doing it.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...ers-yet-again/

“My focus on that isn’t an indictment on whether it is or isn’t [immigration pushing unemployment up or wages down],” Walker said. “It’s saying I think that should be a factor.”

It is one of the 3 Factors, the other 2 are free trade treason and the income tax that ship out capital investment, technology, and the good jobs that pay high wages and offer good benefits.

Keep up the good work with the good message, Scott. Our country needs to hear this, and it needs to hear it in no uncertain terms, so be specific and unwavering.

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/04/wa...-burned-blames

Walker Goes To Minnesota, Gets Burned, Blames Democrats

By capper
4/24/15 5:00am






On Thursday, Scott Walker went for another one of his taxpayer-funded non-campaign campaign jaunts. This time he went to Minnesota.

Now, keep in mind that for the past 4+ years - with the exception of professional and college football - Minnesota has been kicking Wisconsin's butt on just about every economic measure. The reasons are myriad, but the biggest four reasons are health care, minimum wage, unions and pay equality.

As one might expect, Walker was welcomed with a fair amount of taunting. However, it was R.T. Rybak, former mayor of Minneapolis, who gave Walker third-degree political burns:

In 2010, both Wisconsin and Minnesota faced similar budget woes and a worrisome economic future amid a national recession. Both are also Midwest states, deeply invested in manufacturing and agricultural economic drivers. The only difference was that Minnesotans elected DFL Gov. Mark Dayton to turn Minnesota around, while Wisconsinites chose Scott Walker to lead their state’s recovery.

Only one governor was successful.

In Minnesota, Dayton turned a $5 billion budget deficit into a more than $1 billion budget surplus in just one term. By raising taxes on the wealthiest earners, Minnesota is now in a position to invest more resources into the state’s schools and infrastructure.

In Wisconsin, Walker was unable to take his state out of the red and is still facing a $2 billion budget deficit. Walker made the decision to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires, while slashing programs and refusing investments at the expense of middle-class families and Wisconsin’s financial well-being.

In Minnesota, Dayton has moved forward Democratic policies like increasing the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid and investing in the middle class, and now we are seeing one of the most business-friendly states in the country. Just this year, Forbes ranked Minnesota as the ninth best state for business, seventh in economic climate and second in quality of life.

In Wisconsin, Walker opposed a minimum-wage increase and equal-pay legislation, rejected federal funds to expand Medicaid, and attacked Wisconsin workers with right-to-work and anti-collective-​bargaining policies. As a result, the cost of doing business in Wisconsin is higher than the national average, and median household income is thousands less than in Minnesota.

The facts are clear: Walker and the Republican trickle-down economic policies have made it practically impossible for Wisconsin to recover from the recession, and the state consistently sits at the bottom of the region in private-sector job growth.

Walker, true to his nature, wouldn't admit that he is a failure or take any responsibility for the consequences of his policies and budgets:

"You've had the advantage of other than a two-year period of having Republicans in charge of at least one part of government for some time. Before we came into office, for many years there was a Democrat governor, a Democrat assembly and a Democrat Senate," Walker said, noting the state's peak 9.2% unemployment rate prior to his election in 2010 and its 4.6% standing now.

"You look at where we were at, where we started and where we're at today, there has been a dramatic change," he told reporters following his meeting with GOP lawmakers.

Minnesota's jobless rate has consistently been lower than Wisconsin's but also it never climbed as high during the Great Recession. Minnesota's unemployment rate has also tumbled from above 7% at Gov. Mark Dayton's first election to 3.7% now.

The thing is that Walker has had a Republican-controlled Assembly, a Republican-controlled Senate and a Republican-controlled Supreme Court. Walker has been able to do whatever he wanted without restraint.

Furthermore, the job numbers show that the rate of job numbers dropped drastically when Walker was elected and able to get his first budget and his first policies in place.

It's time and beyond that Walker's handlers inform him that the people want a grown up for their president, not a little boy living in an imaginary place.

This is what Walker needs to be prepared to argue against. Facts" that aren't facts, but delusions.

Here's the fact in Minnesota about their unemployment rate:

Minn. Unemployment Rate Drops Despite Job Losses

January 22, 2015 11:25 AM

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota’s unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level in more than 13 years even though more than 5,000 jobs were lost in December.

The state economic development agency says employers cut 5,200 jobs in December. The department also revised November’s job gains down by 4,000.

But unemployment in the state dropped to 3.6 percent last month. It’s the lowest rate since April 2001. It’s also lower than the national average of 5.6 percent.

Government, education and health services and manufacturing saw the most job losses. Trade, transportation and utilities added the most jobs last month.

(© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

This is the national "unemployment" anomaly. Unemployment rates drop as states and the country still have job losses. How is that possible one asks? Simple. There are so few jobs and so much immigration competition for so long that unemployed Americans are no longer counted in the unemployment statistics or they're underemployed working at jobs that don't sustain them.

More Minnesota kids live in poverty

• Article by: SAMANTHA SCHMIDT , Star Tribune
• Updated: July 22, 2014 - 7:51 PM

Doubling since 2000 is mark against state in new report.

Minnesota continues to rank among the nation’s top states for child well-being, but a new report shows rising rates of child poverty are creating racial disparities among the worst in the nation.

The annual Kids Count report, produced by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Children’s Defense Fund, ranked Minnesota No. 5 in the nation for child well-being, behind Massachusetts, Vermont, Iowa and New Hampshire. It has placed in the top five for more than 10 years.

But the number of children living in high-poverty neighborhoods has doubled, from 3 percent in 2000 to 6 percent in 2012. Despite the economic recovery of the past six years, 15 percent of Minnesotan children lived in poverty in 2012, up three percentage points from 2005.

While that rate compared well to other states, poverty rates among Minnesota’s minority children are some of the worst in the nation. Almost half of African-American children lived in poverty in 2012, along with 38 percent of American Indian children, 30 percent of Hispanic or Latino children, and 20 percent of Asian children.

All the minority poverty rates exceed the national average, possibly because of Minnesota’s large immigrant and refugee communities, according to Stephanie Hogenson, Research and Policy Director at the Children’s Defense Fund-Minnesota.

“But I think it is much more than that in our state,” Hogenson said. “I think we’ve ignored this problem of disparity for far too long.”

Minnesota has improved on most measures of child health, with the percentage of children lacking insurance down to 5 percent from 6 percent in 2008. Other states, however, are doing much better.

The state’s overall health ranking for children slid to 17th nationally, down from 15th in 2013 and seventh the previous year. As one of the healthiest states overall in the country, and with globally renowned health care, Minnesota should not be in the middle of the pack for child health, Hogenson said.

“We’re no longer seen as a leader in child health as we once were,” she said.

Minnesota’s growing minority population could place additional demands on early education programs and the state’s child-care subsidy system, which has a backlog of about 8,000 families, Hogenson said. More than half of 3- and 4-year-olds are not attending preschool, and numbers are even higher for children of color, according to the report.

However, Minnesota mirrored the nation with a rising percentage of children overall attending preschool and a decline in the number of schoolchildren who are not proficient in reading and math. Teen birthrates are at a historic low, and the number of teens who abuse drugs and alcohol also improved.

http://www.startribune.com/local/268178192.html

It's very important that Scott Walker and any other candidate who wants to run on a platform that supports American Workers to have the facts that refute the opposition's lies about the impact of immigration on our workers and society. He needs to hire an expert economic researcher who knows the US Economy 101, to address the anomalies of our economic statistics that totally distort the reality of the impact of immigration on employment, underemployment, poverty, incomes and the saddest of all which is the drop out of Americans from the work force due to the lack of jobs available to them. They also need to ramp up their database of facts about the impact of immigration on minority citizens in the US, including blacks, hispanics and asians. They need to know the truth about what is happening to them and why.

And for all those who still support the income tax, please see the "trick" of the tax credit welfare program and it's way of distorting actual poverty levels:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wiscons...258325971.html

Poverty drops, but not to pre-recession levels, study finds

By Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel
May 7, 2014

[IMG]http://media.jrn.com/images/185*344/POVERTY08G.jpg[/IMG]

The poverty level continued to drop in Wisconsin in 2012, thanks to increases in jobs and earnings, according to a new study released by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.

The study found, however, that jobs have still not returned to pre-recession levels, and that a safety net of work support and family assistance programs was still very much needed. Further, the poverty rate varied widely; in the central city of Milwaukee, more than two out of five people were in poverty.

"The social safety net provided a buffer against poverty during the Great Recession and still makes a very big difference in poverty, though it is now shrinking because of the recovery and some cutbacks in recession-related spending on refundable tax credits," the report says.

The research is contained in the Wisconsin Poverty Report produced by UW's Institute for Research on Poverty.

While the official poverty rate for Wisconsin was 12.8%, researchers used a different measurement that placed it at 10.2%. The alternative measurement accounts for such benefits as food assistance and refundable tax credits.

For children, the official poverty rate was 17.9% but dropped to 11% with the alternate measure. For the elderly, the alternate measure of 7.4% was actually higher than the official rate of 6.2%.

"In times of need, a safety net that enhances low earnings for families with children, puts food on the table and encourages self-reliance — as Wisconsin's safety net does — makes a big difference," said Timothy Smeeding, the institute's director.

Smeeding and other researchers created the alternative measurement — known as the Wisconsin Poverty Measure — in an attempt to provide a more accurate picture of poverty in the state. It's also intended to give researchers and policy-makers a sense of how the economy and public policies are affecting poverty.

Researchers found in Milwaukee County the Wisconsin Poverty Measure was 18.8%, although poverty rates varied throughout the area, soaring to 41.6% in central city Milwaukee. Milwaukee and Dane counties, and 10 counties clustered in the northwest corner of the state all had poverty levels above the state rate.

"In brief, employment is not back to pre-recession levels and work support programs, especially refundable tax credits and food assistance, are still helping working families escape poverty," the report says. "Yet the economy is slowly turning around and the combination of greater earnings, tax credits and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) are moving many people over the poverty threshold, especially those in families with children."

In 2012, the federal poverty threshold was $26,731 for a family of four when including medical expenses and payments of mortgage principal.

The report found "that jobs, earnings, and wages are beginning to rise again in Wisconsin, lessening the impact of the safety net on poverty as benefits are lower because of higher earnings."

This is important, and I have an example. A family of 3, 2 adults and 1 child, earn approximately $1,000 a month from the mother who works 30 hours a week at $8 an hour and a father who took early retirement due to some high blood pressure issues and lack of jobs he can do and brings home $1,100 in Social Security (not disability, just reduced early retirement Social Security and about $200 of that is because of their child until he's 18yo or graduates from college for a total monthly of $2,100 a month, receives between $5,000 and $7,000 in federal earned income and child care income tax credits when they file their income taxes, and they still qualify for some food stamps, a small amount, but still some. The child qualifies for Medicaid coverage, the parents do not, but they will qualify for health insurance subsidies probably close to 100%, if and when they apply for Obama Care which they have probably done by now.

Does this make any sense to anyone? To me, this makes no sense at all. The mother is underemployed needing at least 40 hours at week but is restricted to 30 hours by the employer, the owner of the business is an immigrant from India. The father is unemployed and took early retirement because he can't find a job he can do. But do they show up in unemployment figures? Nope. Do they show up in poverty figures? Yep. Do they show up in poverty figures after taking into account the tax credits and food stamps? Nope.

How is this sustainable? There are tens of millions of Americans living this scenario at the expense of US taxpayers while all new jobs since 2009 have gone to immigrants.

This does not make sense. This is not sustainable.

This is insanity.

Koch Brothers, I hope you're reading and watching. You can help stop this madness, and I believe you will.

I would like to believe the Koch brothers are patriots, but they seem to be ambiguous on stopping the illegal alien invasion.

Originally Posted by csarbww

I would like to believe the Koch brothers are patriots, but they seem to be ambiguous on stopping the illegal alien invasion.

I think we need to get them to come out on that issue. I suspect they may actually be smart enough to see the adverse consequences of what's happening that people like them actually pay for because they're paying for the welfare and poverty spending that results from it which is much more costly than paying market wages. They may be trying to find a way to help the GOP gain Latino CITIZEN votes which is okay, nothing wrong with that, while not confusing the message with the immigration issue, even though they probably oppose illegal immigration and excess legal immigration, because anyone with 2 live brain cells still connected sees the harm and the cost of that harm to everyone who pays taxes to fund it. I noticed that they get blamed as being "pro-immigrant" because they "back" or formed or were some way involved with establishing this outfit called LIBRE, whose mission is to get the Hispanic and Latino vote out, not be a immigration advocate for illegal aliens. But, we'll see. Maybe they'll clarify with who they support, Scott Walker, then we'll know, if someone else, then the fuzz on them continues.

Originally Posted by csarbww

I would like to believe the Koch brothers are patriots, but they seem to be ambiguous on stopping the illegal alien invasion.

The Koch brothers are not ambiguous on illegal immigration. Neither is Scott Walker. They are both on the record in support of the kind of immigration reform amnesty for illegals ALIPAC has fought to stop legislatively.

W

I have had some reservations about Scott Walker's ambiguity over illegal immigration. But come on patriots, he has come out loud and clear about stopping the overwhelming invasion of illegal immigration and control of massive supposedly "legal" immigration. With that, far and above the other candidates he has earned our full support.

Originally Posted by csarbww

I have had some reservations about Scott Walker's ambiguity over illegal immigration. But come on patriots, he has come out loud and clear about stopping the overwhelming invasion of illegal immigration and control of massive supposedly "legal" immigration. With that, far and above the other candidates he has earned our full support.

I may not be to the "full support" stage yet, but he has certainly risen above the rest of the Republican field on the issue of immigration. If the vote was tomorrow, I would vote for him. Not because I think he is the greatest thing since sliced bread (there is still the question of whether he's speaking from the heart), but because none of the other candidates current positions measure up. Up until a about a weeks ago I thought Cruz was good, however, I then found out he supports the tripling of work visas, including those in the STEM field. For all of the candidates, with possible exception of Walker: "You've been weighed, measured, and found wanting." (quote from the movie A Knight's Tale)

Personally, I think Walker's change in position is something we should be proud of, not critical of. After all, hasn't one of our key goals been accomplished ..... and that is to convince politicians that our way is the best way to serve Americans and America? Walker is singing our tune now, and I for one am grateful for that. I say let's praise his message and continue to convince him that he's got it right through our support. Being critical of his past position doesn't do us, him, or the country any good.

Judy Wrote (excerpt):

And personally, I think Republicans need to send out better stronger messages to Black Americans

I agree wholeheartedly because no group of people is being hurt by illegal immigration/excessive immigration more than the black community.