Stranger Than Fiction

The US House of Representatives and the speaker of the house, Paul Ryan, promised a vote on a comprehensive immigration bill before the August recess. The problem was they had not written the bill at that point. So they started the process and started whipping up the votes without completing the language of the bill, a fairly normal procedure. This time they hit a huge snag though.

Now keeping in mind that there is a great deal of sentiment, especially in Republican circles, against illegal immigration as the foundation of most of society's ills from crime to welfare, which sentiment drives the comprehensive immigration language. So on the face of it, one expects the Republican party, who dominate in numbers in the House, to write a bill that does all it can to stop or at least slow down illegal immigration. But hold on and maybe hold your nose. Lobbyists from the California Farm Bureau (full disclosure-my husband worked for the CFB for a while) have come out strongly against the two bills that are currently being written and discussed because both versions require all employers, including farmers, to use e-verify to guarantee that any employee is legally able to work in the US. Not only is the Farm Bureau opposed to guaranteeing legal workers but they have described verifying legal status of workers as "socialism".

You can't make this stuff up.

Trump said that US taxpayers would benefit from his tough trade rules including his tariffs. So how does a regular taxpayer benefit from $12billion dollar bailout of US farmers who are losing money because of the tariffs? How does a US taxpayer benefit from Whirlpool, among other companies, raising its prices at least 25% and possibly more because of Trump's tariffs? Donald J. Boudreaux, economics professor at George Mason University described Trump's tariffs as "economic suicide".

You can't make this stuff up.