Monday, August 17, 2015

Is Trump a more offensive version of Patrick Buchanan?

Trump just came out with his immigration plan the other day and at first I kind of liked it.  It starts out with the three core principles of his immigration reform:

1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.
2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.
3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.
I can't really argue with that, but then in the "Putting American Workers First" section he takes a shot at legal immigration, including of skilled workers who come here on H1B visas.  This is where he loses me as well as all the other non-nativist GOP voters out there.  The problem with our immigration system is simple, we've made it very easy for the unskilled to come to this country and very hard for qualified people who follow rules.  Basically, it is completely backwards.  We should be making it harder for the unskilled to come in and much easier for doctors, lawyers and IT folks to come here.  A nation's ultimate resource is its people and the more smart, educated people we have here, the better.

According to the Census Bureau, many of these foreign born American have a higher labor participation rate than those born here and hence a lower poverty rate and drag on our finances:


It really just amazes me how Trump is trying to maximize the number of people he wants to offend.  He has gone from hispanics to women to all immigrants (13% of the population is foreign born) which brings his grand total to 65% of the population (I took into account double counting).  Does this sound like someone who is going to be winning any national elections to you?

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