Dave Chandler

Who Wants to Make LESS Money in Colorado?

In this morning's Denver Post is an pretty good opinion article by Froma Harrop. It makes a strong point about who in this country is most hurt by the influx of illegal immigrants. Big surprise -- it is not the elite rich and powerful -- it is the working poor.

Of course, liberals and progressives are not supposed to talk about the insidious side of illegal immigration ... we're supposed to well-up into tears and sighs of compassion for the exploited foreign workers, just here to make some dollars. And, you probably should at least feel sorry for good folks who are suckered into breaking the law by crossing the border illegally so that they can help the owners of Swift make bigger profits.

Harrop notes in her commentary, "The price of unskilled labor in the United States hasn't gone up. It has gone down. Because of immigration, American-born high-school dropouts experienced a 5-percent loss in wages during the '80s and '90s, according to a study by Harvard economist George Borjas."

If you want to express a bit of compassion for some people who really need help, you don't need to search out illegal workers whose utility -- as far as the big corporations are concerned -- is to be 'undocumented' so that they can be exploited. How about American teenagers who see little point in education because folks from other countries can come here and take jobs they need?

As for Colorado's Roman Archbisop Chaput and his 'advocacy' for illegal immigrants in this country ... just remember the actions of his church and its attitude towards natives of Latin America six hundred years ago. The church hierarchy favored exploitation then ... and apparently it still does. In truth, little has changed.

We need real immigration reform in this nation -- of that there is no doubt. But I have little confidence that our corporate-sponsored elected officials will do what is best for working class Americans. What we will probably get is a version of the Bush-U.S. Chamber of Commerce amnesty and guest-worker legislation ... in other words, opening the gates to a flood of immigrant labor to drive down wages and benefits for everyone except the governing and 'investor' classes.

My appeal to liberals and progressives is to take a hard look at who actually benefits from illegal immigration ... and as Harrop explains in this article, you'll see that your 'economic' compassion for the folks rounded-up at the meat processing plants is misplaced.

Link: Rich Man, Poor Man: The Immigration Sweepstakes | Froma Harrop/Providence Journal/Seattle Times

There's a popular game in America that goes, I'll cut your wages, but you don't cut mine. And the outsourcing of your factory job to China is a good thing, because it makes my paycheck go further at Wal-Mart. We hear this theme a lot in the debate over illegal immigration.

Consider the recent raids on Swift meat-processing plants. Federal agents arrested 1,187 illegal immigrants at facilities in six states. Mere hours later, economists warned that depriving the industry of illegal labor could raise hamburger prices.

Illegal immigration is usually presented as a win-win situation: Undocumented foreigners earn far more than they could back home. Consumers get a bargain.

Nowhere to be seen are America's working poor who get stomped on 13 different ways. They have to compete with illegal immigrants for jobs and housing. Low-skilled natives and legal immigrants also end up subsidizing the undocumented because they tend to live in the same communities, which must provide hospitals, police, schools and garbage pickup.

Who doesn't suffer from illegal immigration? For starters, the people who write about it. I speak of the journalism profession, which has the habit of covering the issue by anecdotes. Reporters thrive on sympathetic stories about illegal immigrants who work hard and go to church.

But, were a busload of illegals from Australia to turn up at their newspaper and offer reportage at 10 percent below the going rate, the writers would call the authorities so fast that your head would spin. And the publisher's argument that thanks to the cheap Australians, he's able to trim a few cents off the newsstand price would make no impression.

As it turns out, the meat-processing companies that employ so many illegal immigrants have been enjoying a nearly 50-percent discount on what was the going rate. In 1980, the average meat-processing job paid $19 an hour. The companies then moved their plants to rural areas, far from the Midwest cities and their unions. The industry's wages now average about $9 an hour.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce likes to wail about the "labor shortage." It says there aren't enough chambermaids, dishwashers, etc. to work for its members at lousy wages. Odd, but when there's a shortage of labor — or anything else — doesn't the price of it go up?

The price of unskilled labor in the United States hasn't gone up. It has gone down. Because of immigration, American-born high-school dropouts experienced a 5-percent loss in wages during the '80s and '90s, according to a study by Harvard economist George Borjas.

For some reason, the job of keeping prices low has fallen entirely on the shoulders of the most vulnerable Americans. If we banged down CEO compensation and sliced lawyers' pay by a third, the same thing would happen. Everyone's prices would drop. The corporation could sell its products for less, and the cost of legal services would fall.

No vocation keeps a tighter lid on immigration than the medical profession. "If we let in 100,000 immigrant doctors," Richard Freeman, another Harvard economist, recently told a group of journalists, "everyone in this room would benefit." Except the American doctors.

Suggest a U.S. labor policy that depresses professional pay as a means of keeping prices in check, and you get laughed out of the room. But say that sitting on the wages of unskilled factory workers stems inflationary pressure — a frequent argument — and the Ph.D.s quietly nod in agreement.

And that's how the game is played. High pay for me. Low pay for you. The folks at the economic bottom are obviously not making the rules.

2006, The Providence Journal Co.

Colorado's Anal-Retentive Legislators and School Bureaucrats

The term "anal-retentive" had to have been invented as a description of Colorado legislators and school officials for the consequences of their policies as related in the two articles below.

From Wikipedia: "This term is often used in reference to a person seen as overly worried about small details of form, style and etiquette; who is uptight or distressed over ordinarily minor problems, and unable to adopt a philosophical attitude toward mistakes."

I have put the links to two recent Bill Johnson Rocky Mountain News columns in chronological order so that you can get a sense of the story. Needless to say after you read the account, what is clearly lacking is common sense on the part of legislators who pass such 'black-and-white' laws without regard to mitigating circumstances and school district bureaucrats who have more concern for dotting every 'i' and crossing every 't' of the rules than educating young people.

Of course, we've all heard of other stories like this from around the country ... the grade schooler somewhere that was expelled for innocently putting a butter kinife in their lunch box so they could spread their peanut butter ...

Here in Colorado, or at least in the Jefferson County School District, an attitude of anal-retentive nannyism is so pervasive that I've seen children ordered to stop running on the grass because they might fall and skin a knee; I have been told that sixth graders were ordered not to trade sandwiches with a friend at lunch; and I've been informed that despite being a major employer, producing a legal product -- a Coors-identifying logo on the back of a charity t-shirt will get a kid sent home.

This moronic overreaction to the Columbine tragedy -- and that's what this is really all about -- is typical of pandering politicians and risk averse 'educrats'. It is moronic because the case related in the articles below show that good kids are victimized by authority because legislative, judicial and administrative officials feel compelled to turn "ordinarily minor problems" into great criminal prosecutions ... because they are afraid that something might happen.

In the bigger picture, this is why our public schools are doing an increasingly poor job of educating our children. There is so much emphasis on administrative 'accountablity' that CSAP testing now sucks up over a month of learning time. There is so much worry about providing a politically safe and politically correct 'educational environment' that the state legislature is now micro-managing school districts from Denver to Meeker.

More money is not the answer to the largest problems plaguing our schools -- although politicians from both parties will ALWAYS tell you that it is. The problem is that teachers are not allowed to teach nearly as much as they should be -- they are required now to do too much paperwork, they are required to prepare for too much testing, they are required to do too much social work. The state legislature tells every teacher in Colorado how to say the Pledge of Allegiance, that they have present 'anti-bullying' lessons, what kind of flags can be in a classroom, and so on and so on. And let me repeat: both Republicrats and Democans are responsible for this top-down exercise of power.

I believe most individual teachers would love to be free to creatively teach in a way that imparts real knowledge to our young people -- and that is where education reform needs to start taking place. My suggestion would be to repeal at least half of all the laws passed in the last twenty years that mandate what teachers have to do in the classroom, and the salaries of most school adminstrators should be cut in half.

Before we sink millions and millions more dollars into the schools for the same results as we have now ... maybe we ought to try a different approach?

Link: It May be the Law, But Outcome Far From Just | Bill Johnson/Rocky Mountain News

... Sure, she'd had the purse at school, but only in her car, Jessica offered.

The knife was a relatively small one, its blade barely 3 inches long. Her father had given it to her years earlier, after she was savagely assaulted while leaving her job at a movie theater.

"I didn't even remember I had it," Jessica Bralish said, as she sat in the jail lobby. "My dad gave it to me in case a really bad thing happened and I really, really needed it."

She had not brandished it or even taken it out to show to friends. But based upon what happened next, you would think she had waved it like a sword in the school hallway, threatening everyone. ...

... Jessica Bralish's probation assessment noted that she was an A student, altar server, Bible school volunteer and young adult choir member at St. Joan of Arc Church in Arvada who never once had been in trouble.

At sentencing, Judge Brian D. Boatright indicated he wasn't about to send the girl to jail, that at most he would sentence her to home detention.

Prosecutor Ely Pierson, though, argued hard for jail time.

Scott Storey, Jefferson County district attorney, in an interview, lamented the girl's confinement, saying he had personally reviewed her case.

But the law, he said, ultimately had "tied our hands," that it was unfortunate that she became an adult as the case dragged on. ...

... Jessica Bralish turned 18 on Nov. 12.

Her father, David, 49, spent part of Monday fashioning picket signs. He carried one for about 20 minutes in front of the Jefferson County courthouse and DA's office before a sheriff's deputy stopped him, saying he needed a permit.

"No, I don't believe I deserve this," Jessica said softly as we waited. "There are a lot of people out there who have done a lot worse than I have. Still, I don't hold anything against anyone. I just want this to be over with."

Her looming incarceration had been harder on her family than on her, she confided.

Link: Early Release Places Christmas Back on Track for Jailed Teenager | Bill Johnson/Rocky Mountain News

In the end, Scott Storey got it right and let the little girl out of jail.

"How do you know I'm a nice guy?" the Jefferson County district attorney had barked in a Tuesday interview.

But after we both hung up the phone, the DA called the judge who'd sentenced now-18-year-old Jessica Bralish about getting her out. The judge, it turned out, needed little persuading.

More than that, Scott Storey then walked from his office to the sidewalk outside where David Bralish once again was walking back and forth, carrying a sign protesting his daughter's five-day jail sentence, and promised him he was doing everything he could to free her.

Nice or not, the DA did the right thing.

He knew the girl posed absolutely no threat to anyone, that it made no sense for her to do five days in jail for a tiny knife she had no idea was still in her purse.

Technically, Jessica Bralish was, indeed, guilty of carrying a concealed weapon at Arvada West High School, which later expelled her. Decided strictly by the books, which the DA acknowledges the sentence was, the mandatory five-day jail term was right on the money.

A blindfolded monkey snatching penalties from a bucket could mete out justice more fairly than those called for by unthinking school zero-tolerance policies and courthouse mandatory minimum rules.

Jessica Bralish walked out of Jefferson County Jail early Thursday, three full days ahead of time, wrapping her arms around her parents and pleading to go home. ...