Immigration Fast and Bush

As legislators consider proposed immigration reforms this week, the head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese is calling for Catholics to fast and pray in solidarity with undocumented immigrants.

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"Let us fast in solidarity with those members of our community, especially the undocumented, who often endure lives of deprivation and hardship," Mahony said in a statement.

On another immigration topic, I was finished listening to Bill Clinton when
he shook his finger at me and said "I did not have sex with that woman".

Bush has been coming close to that lately. Not an outright lie, but like
Clinton, he shows little respect in this immigration debate for the intelligence
of his listeners.

Bush over and over says that the illegal aliens are simply taking jobs that
Americans will not do or want. As if these job situations at slave wages were
something normal. They are not.

All jobs have a bottom level of pay at which economics says people will not
be attracted to them. The prevailing wage then becomes something slightly above
that bottom level.

Americans will not work at the wages offered, but desperate illegal
employees will. Certainly these jobs existed for a long time and were filled by
Americans before the immigrants came. But the natural American greed for
the cheapest price in these fields has driven us to use illegitimate
workers.

If the immigrants were not here to accept the jobs, the jobs themselves
would change somehow to be more productive, or the wages would rise to attract
workers. None of this economic system works when the rules of the game are
broken by using foreign slaves.

In my view, Bush is not speaking plainly about some important things. Even
worse, he thinks little of me when he gives me a "nobody wants the jobs"
explanation. Although I am sure his speechwriters would hope all things are
going smoothly.