Who Will Do the Infrastructure Jobs?

            Building and maintaining infrastructure are one of the key parts of President Obama’s plan to deal with our current economic problems, particularly unemployment. But many Americans are concerned, given recent statements by a top Obama economic advisor, about who will reap the benefits of newly created infrastructure jobs.

            That advisor, Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary under President Clinton, spoke to the House Steering and Policy Committee on January 7. He said, “It seems to me that infrastructure spending is a very important and good way of stimulating the economy. . . . I am concerned, as many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high skilled people who are already professionals or to white male construction workers.” He added that he had “nothing against” white male construction workers, but “other people have . . . needs as well.” He mentioned “the long-term unemployed, minorities, and women.”

            Reich comments are troubling to say the least. When we Americans contemplate the infrastructure we depend on, such as the bridges we drive over, we should hope that all without exception who build and repair that infrastructure, regardless of race or gender, are highly skilled and professional.

            Troubling too was the response of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) to Reich’s statements. Apparently agreeing with the idea of favoring designated minorities, Rangel said that opposition from “the middle class” would not be a problem. “One thing you can depend on,” said Rangel, “you don’t have to be worried about what the middle-class is going to do. Things are so bad, they have to put food on their tables, get clothes for their kids, [and] get them in school.”

            Does Rep. Rangel hope to slip a program through, allegedly to benefit minorities, which may give preference to “need” over competence? One hopes that “middle-class” America will not be so distracted that they fail to exercise oversight. With middle-class people losing jobs, they may need infrastructure work just as much as anyone else. Such oversight also could help minorities who are U.S. citizens.

            Today, thanks to the hiring practices of unscrupulous contractors, a significant percentage of construction workers in the U.S. are illegal aliens. As the recession causes them to lose their jobs, will the Obama Administration allow them to take the infrastructure jobs, and cut out American citizens, minority and non-minority alike? The pro-illegal alien stance of the Obama administration does not inspire confidence in this matter.

            If Americans of all classes and races want to reap whatever benefits the Obama program provides, they cannot afford to take their eyes of the administration—even if they are hurting. And finally, as our previous blog observed, if Obama is really serious about maintaining infrastructure, he ought to cut immigration to relieve the burden of unrelenting numbers now placed on infrastructure.      

Immigration Overwhelms Infrastructure

            The Obama Administration promises a major effort to upgrade and rebuild our country’s infrastructure. At the same time, President Obama supports our current massive level of legal immigration as well as amnesty (legalization) for illegal immigrants. The latter proposal, by rewarding lawbreaking, almost certainly will encourage more of it.

            Obama’s plans for infrastructure and his support for mass immigration are completely at odds with each other. Affirming this point most effectively is a recent study by Edwin Rubenstein, the president of ESR Research. Mr. Rubenstein has served as an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and as a research director for the Hudson Institute.

            His study surveyed 15 categories of infrastructure, including airports, border security, bridges, dams and levees, electricity (power grids), hazardous waste removal, hospitals, mass transit, parks and recreation facilities, port and navigable waterways, public schools, railroads, roads and highways, solid waste and trash, and water and sewer systems. He noted that spending on infrastructure is already “one of the largest categories of government spending,” now totaling $233 billion per year (2004 dollars). Nevertheless, our infrastructure is “crumbling” because it simply can’t keep up with sharply rising population, which results in large part from immigration.

            The immigrant population on average, said Rubenstein, receives in more federal, state and local services than it pays in taxes. As a consequence, he observed, “Immigrants could deplete the amount of funds available for infrastructure by as much as $70 billon per year.”

            Citing a recent projection by the U.S. Census Bureau, Rubenstein said that our population—if current immigration levels continue—could reach 433 million by 2050, a 44 percent increase totaling 135 million people. Immigrants and their U.S. born children would account for 82 percent of this population growth.

            The impact of immigration on schools in California is one of the many telling examples that Rubenstein chronicled. In that state 47 percent of the school-age population consists of immigrants and the children of immigrants. In Los Angeles, the need to build new schools has been so great that the Army Corps of Engineers was called in to help manage it.

            “The brutal reality,” Rubenstein concluded from his study, “is that no conceivable infrastructure program can keep pace with [present] population growth. The traditional ‘supply-side’ response to America’s infrastructure shortage—build, build, build—is dead, dead, dead. Demand reduction is the only way to close the gap between the supply and demand for public infrastructure. Immigration reduction must play a role.”   

More Job Losses Ahead, Says Forecast

            The United States lost 2.6 million jobs last year, and the business research firm Conference Board projects that two million more may be lost this year. The official unemployment figure now stands at 7.2. That, however, may be a gross understatement of how bad joblessness has become. Statistician John Williams maintains that the government has changed the standards of measuring over the years to minimize the number of people out of work.

            One example was the decision of the Clinton Administration not to count people who have given up looking for work as being unemployed. Williams affirms that if the government still used the methodology it used in 1980, the official unemployment rate today would be 17.5 percent. Williams has published his findings on www.shadowstats.com.  

            With so many Americans out of work, one would think that the leaders of business and government would consider a reduction of our unprecedented levels of legal immigration which annually admits in 1.6 million permanent and temporary workers to compete with American job-seekers. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Just recently computer mogul Bill Gates spoke before Congress pleading for more foreign workers for his industry.

            Commenting on Gates’ activity, syndicated columnist Paul Craig Roberts observed, “According to Gates, there is a shortage of American workers despite a 17.5 percent unemployment. I personally know American computer engineers, both seasoned and recent graduates, who cannot find jobs. What Gates and American corporations want is cheap labor, in effect indentured servants, unprotected people who don’t demand an American standard of living. . . .  If Congress expands the work visas as U.S. unemployment mounts, we will have one more piece of evidence that ‘our’ representatives have no sympathy for the American people.”  

            Just as clueless was outgoing President George Bush who criticized those who opposed his support for mass immigration and his so-called “reform” plan to give amnesty (legal status) to illegal aliens. Said Bush, “We should be open-minded about big issues like immigration reform, because if we’re viewed as anti-somebody—in other words, if the party is viewed as anti-immigrant—then another fellow may say, well, if they’re against the immigrant, they may be against me.”

            Does it occur to our soon-to-be former president that his viewpoint is blatantly against American workers? Evidently not. Bush and so many others of America’s elite classes are far too removed from economic difficulties to be “open minded” about what is happening to their fellow citizens. 

With Unemployment Rising, It’s Time to Cut H-1Bs

            Economic forecasters see unemployment as a major problem for the foreseeable future. The official figure of unemployment soon probably will rise above seven percent. And critics of the present accounting system say that it undercounts actual unemployment by excluding such categories as people who have given up looking for work.

            In this situation it would be most appropriate for the government to cut the temporary and permanent immigration visas that allow foreigners to come here and take American jobs. A particular case in point is the H-1B program. It allows U.S. businesses to bring in foreigners to take high-tech jobs and other middle class employment if they claim that they cannot find Americans to do the work. Although the stay of H-1B workers  is supposed to be temporary, they often find ways to stay in the U.S. permanently. 

            The claims that American workers aren’t available are usually bogus, says computer science professor Normal Matloff who teaches at the University of California (Davis). Citing two reports commissioned by Congress, one by the Department of Homeland Security and the Government Accountability Office, Matloff says that the companies are quite creative in finding legal loopholes to avoid their legal responsibility to hire Americans. The reason, he affirms, that they can pay the foreigners less than U.S. citizens.

            Matloff also points out that universities often hire H-1B scientists using the same kind of deception. They maintain that American scientists are in short supply. Against this claim, Matloff cites the findings of investigative reporter Eric Weinstein. Specifically, the National Science Foundation viewed H-1Bs as an effective way for colleges and universities to hold down PhD salaries. This also had the effect of making a PhD in the sciences less attractive to Americans.

            One case Matloff cites is that of Douglas Prasher, one of the leading research chemists in the U.S. Despite the alleged shortage of American scientists, the only work Prasher can find is driving a shuttle bus for a Toyota dealership in Alabama.

            “The bottom line,” Matloff charges, is that the H-1B program is being used in academia for cheap labor, just like [high tech]. It’s ruining the careers and lives of people . . . even to the point of forcing a Nobel-level researcher into blue collar work to earn a living. And all this is occurring unseen behind the hype that ‘Johnnie can’t do science’ and the U.S. is on the verge of losing its technical edge.”

            When the North American Free trade agreement was being negotiated, U.S. economic elites told Americans not to worry about the loss of our industrial base because high tech and science would provide middle class jobs to replace the ones lost to free trade. But with H-1B and similar programs, these jobs also are moving away from Americans.

            So how will native-born Americans maintain a middle class society? Apparently it is not an issue that concerns Congress much. As Matloff points out, its members are more concerned with maintaining their standard of living through the contributions provided by H-1B lobbyists. The bottom line is that congressmen will not be worrying about the jobs of average citizens until those citizens—as voters—start making congressmen worry about their employment.