January 22-23, 2018: The GOP Suckers' Bet

 

1/22/18: The GOP-controlled Congress manages to rack up an average approval rating of 15.8%. Most Americans agree that House Speaker Paul Ryan has no more spine than a bowl of butterscotch pudding.

___ 

 

1/23/18: Immigration talk is all the rage in Washington. Trump’s right-wing base hates immigrants because immigrants want to kill Americans with saws, hammers, and garden tools. 

Let’s take a trip to Texas – where they really, really, really need a wall! 

____________________ 

“Texas lives on immigrant labor. Our economy is the way it is partly because cost of living is cheap and the reason for that is labor is cheap.” 

Jeff Nielsen, Houston Contractors Association

____________________ 

 

Look closely and you notice something odd. Texas government is dominated by the GOP. Texas has a GOP governor. The GOP controls the Texas House of Representatives. And the Texas Senate! The state has two Republican U.S. senators. Republican-gerrymandered districts ensure Republicans send 25 GOP representatives to the U.S. House of Representatives vs. 11 Democrats. Yet, undocumented workers are employed all across the state. 

Despite what Trump & Co. would have you believe the undocumented aren’t killing people. They’re laying brick, finishing drywall, and shingling roofs. According to the Houston Chronicle, 400,000 construction jobs in Texas are filled by undocumented workers. 

Why? 

They work for half what American workers might demand (see, Polish workers: 11/27/17). Jeff Nielsen, executive vice president of the Houston Contractors Association, is blunt. “Texas lives on immigrant labor. Our economy is the way it is partly because cost of living is cheap and the reason for that is labor is cheap.” 

(As a blogger, I found that 400,000 number so surprising, I decided to recheck my sources. The sources agree.)

 

A Pew study completed in 2014 estimated that 1 in every 12 Texas jobs was filled by an undocumented worker. They were hired mostly by GOP-leaning business owners, almost all of whom would argue what we what we need most if we want to help real American workers would be massive tax cuts for business. Tax cuts would allow them to hire more workers.

Republicans control government in Texas

and still don't stop hiring of undocumented workers

 

 

This is the GOP suckers’ bet.

 

This is the GOP suckers’ bet. A GOP president insists he’s going to build a big, beautiful wall to keep illegal immigrants out. GOP lawmakers, local, state, and federal, talk about helping the real American worker. Many of those real American workers vote for GOP candidates because, hey, Democrats want to “take away all their guns.” Democrats want to make “war on Christmas” and let transgender individuals invade the bathrooms. Meanwhile, GOP business types drive wages down for the real American worker by hiring the undocumented.

 

Also: they ship jobs overseas for fun. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Might I add, as a card-carrying liberal, that I believe Donald J. Trump is a sack of excrement when he hints that all Mexican immigrants are rapists and murderers and jaywalking monsters. I believe the average person from Mexico, entering the U.S. legally or not, is pretty much the same as the average native-born citizen. I figure the average immigrant in 2018 has the same motivation my equally-reviled Irish immigrant ancestors had in 1846. 

I taught American history for decades. I don’t forget that my ancestors were supposedly a “threat” to traditional American values. 

Why? 

They were Catholic.