by Neil Munro
Florida Republican Rep. Maria Salazar’s migration bill is a high-stakes attack by business groups on the wages of her party’s populist-minded voters.
“Here’s what matters most,” Salazar said in a poll-tested, talking-point response to populist criticism from Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX):
It costs ZERO taxpayer dollars. Reduces the deficit. Invests $70 BILLION into our [employers’] workforce.
“It’s really simple” for business lobbyists, Gill told a radio show:
They want cheap labor …They want illegal aliens in the country. Because for them, that is bigger profit margins whenever you suppress American wages, or whenever you’re able to replace more expensive American workers with cheaper illegal aliens or other [visa worker] foreigners. That increases their profit margin. I mean, it’s really, really simple for them.
Salazar’s bill provides work permits to at least 12 million illegal migrants. That flood of legalized migrants would slash wages, goose profits, and expand the Gross Domestic Product number — all of which is desired by investors on Wall Street and by boomer retirees in suburbia.
But her bill also shrinks the per-person income needed by ordinary Americans, destroys opportunities for young Americans, and also shrivels the incentive for companies to raise productivity — even as China invests in high-tech production, autos, and robots.
The bill would also expand the huge foreign inflows into the white-collar jobs needed by hard-pressed U.S. college graduates, said an account titled “Barefoot Student.” It added, “Young Americans are on their own. Battle lines drawn.”
Her bill revives President George W. Bush’s “Any Willing Worker” migrant pipelines for the employers who do not want to pay Americans enough to cover their rents, pay for their kids, or lead a dignified and prosperous life.
Migrants will flood the labor market and drive up housing costs and welfare costs for Americans, radio host Dennis Michael Lynch told Salazar.
“That’s their responsibility, not mine,” Salazar responded. “That’s the average American person problem,” she added.