I got my moment of encouragement when I learned Wednesday that the U.S. Senate voted to approve a bill that will spend $15 billion in federal funds to try to increase the number of jobs in this country.
Not because I’m excited about more jobs or the fact that some Republican members of the Senate were willing to back away from hard-core political partisanship to support a measure that has the potential to make a Democratic Party president look good – although both of those aspects are positive in and of themselves.
WHAT ENCOURAGED ME was when I learned the vote came despite an attempt by some members of the Republican caucus in the Senate (who I would guess were among the “28” who voted against the bill) to drag immigration into this picture.
The bill that received a solid 70-28 vote would give employers exemptions from payroll taxes for anyone they hire who has been unemployed for at least two months. It also increases tax write-offs under certain circumstances, in hopes that that urges more spending on public works projects – which means more construction work and more jobs for such skilled workers who have faced cuts with many government entities deciding to hold off on their infrastructure projects until economic times improve.
It’s not the biggest measure in the world, but it is something. But there are those who would have preferred to keep it nothing.
During the debate leading up to the vote of approval on Wednesday, there were those political people who argued that these tax cuts were bad because government entities and companies would use them to give jobs to the dreaded species they insist on referring to as “illegal” aliens.
OR SHOULD I write, “Illegal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” aliens.
They want to believe that “real Americans” (their phrase, not mine) won’t get any of these new jobs created, which strikes me as an odd thought for several reasons.
For one thing, many of these conservatives are the same ones who usually argue that government interferes too much with business interests and we’d all be better off if business were allowed to operate as it sees fit.
Could it be there are cases where even these people don’t trust business practices? Or is this kind of rhetoric best ignored because it constitutes little more than diarrhea of the mouth?
BECAUSE THAT IS what such talk amounts to when someone has to resort to the idea of a batch of foreigners “stealing” jobs from U.S. citizens. It just isn’t happening. And in cases where U.S. companies truly are trying to find foreign workers out of the belief they will work “cheaper,” I’d argue that the true criminal is the company – not the worker.
It also seems odd because these nativists are the ones who always want to engage in tales of superiority and usually try to claim the influx in recent decades of newcomers from Latin American countries somehow stands to drag down the quality of life in our society.
Could it be that what really scares these nativists is the fact they see that our ethnic brethren are willing to work (and do the hard work necessary to maintain our society) and that many of them come off looking downright lazy by comparison?
We’re making them look bad, so they want us all (seriously, how many of these people want to tell the difference between a Latino and a Latin American immigrant) to leave. Which makes me wonder if a United States filled up with people completely like themselves is the nation that truly would become a third-world country?
BUT LIKE I wrote earlier, this attempt to drag immigration into a jobs bill appears to have withered away. Thirteen Republicans joined with the 55 Democrats and two sympathetic independents who were present to create the vote that could not have been stopped by a filibuster.
This is encouraging. Because ultimately, it is when our political people put aside their partisanship to try to work together that our society might have a chance to work its way out of the economic struggles and other problems it faces these days.
I only hope this same attitude prevails when this particular measure goes over to the U.S. House of Representatives for consideration. It could still be killed off there. For all I know, the same crackpots who tried to push immigration fears earlier this week may try to do so again in hopes that House members will be somewhat more gullible.
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EDITOR’S NOTES: Scott Brown, the new U.S. senator from Massachusetts who was hailed as being the man who made the Republicans relevant again in Washington, was among the 13 Republicans who sided with Democrats (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/us/politics/25jobs.html) on the jobs bill.
The day will come when the nativist rhetoric being used today will sound downright ridiculous. I hope to be alive (http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/02/23-5) when it happens.
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