Immigration Is Better Than Industrial Policy
In demonizing the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, J.D. Vance and Donald Trump have forgotten what makes an economy work.
We have heard a whole lot over the past eight years about the need to revitalize blue-collar America.
But factories don't operate because presidents dump billions of borrowed dollars into places chosen for politically strategic reasons. Widgets don't get made and the supply chain doesn't keep churning along because the president orders it—no, not even if he uses the word "hereby."
Mostly, the economy spins ever onward because individuals show up for work and produce something that other people—their employers, customers, clients, donors, etc.—value and are willing to pay for, and then they do it again the next day.
The much-maligned Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, which has become the center ring of America's stupidest political circus over the past week, seem to have been doing exactly that: showing up.
"They are assembling car engines at Honda, running vegetable-packing machines at Dole and loading boxes at distribution centers," The New York Times reported earlier this month. "They are paying taxes on their wages and spending money at Walmart. On Sundays they gather at churches for boisterous, joyful services in Haitian Creole."
Sen. J.D. Vance's (R–Ohio) recent criticisms of the Haitian immigrants in Springfield lacked "real knowledge of what the workforce situation in Ohio is," Ross McGregor, CEO of Pentaflex Inc., which makes brake and axel parts for trucks, told Kevin Williamson for a must-read essay published this week by The Dispatch.
"I don't think [Vance] really understands from a boots-on-the-ground perspective what employers are dealing with in trying to have a consistent and reliable workforce," McGregor explained. "If he were to apply a business mindset to this situation, he would see the benefit that we get from simply being able to rely on somebody coming to work every day." (Emphasis added)
A Republican Party that was less blindfolded by its nativism and less committed to reassuring its supporters that cultural change is always bad—as opposed to being a natural part of the modern world, and a necessary part of a functioning, dynamic economy—would see an opportunity to tell a different kind of story about Springfield. After all, the Haitians in Springfield are simply the latest chapter in the story of Ohio: a story that includes waves of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and other parts of the world who came to Ohio to take the same sort of bottom-rung jobs and begin the process of working their way up the American economic ladder.
If acknowledging the reality of the role that immigration has played in America's history is too much, a saner group of Republicans could at least have used Springfield to draw a sharp contrast with the Biden administration's views on what drives economic growth.
Take the CHIPS Act, for example. In the two years since it passed, the Biden administration's attempt to spur semiconductor manufacturing in the United States has funded 23 projects in 15 states, according to the Commerce Department. Let's be extremely generous and assume that all 23 of those projects will reach their planned conclusions, and will eventually employ thousands of Americans.
Springfield, Ohio, is not one of those 23 locations. It will not be benefitting from the Biden administration's taxpayer-funded largesse.
What are the Springfields in the rest of the United States to do? Shall they simply fold their hands and pray that certain lobbyists push the right combination of federal officials in the proper direction to ensure that the next windfall of dollars from the money printer lands in their backyard?
This is the problem with industrial policy. It might benefit the government-picked "winners" but it does nothing for the places that don't get to host ribbon-cutting events and campaign speeches. It leaves everywhere else behind.
Even though immigration is ultimately overseen by the federal government, it's a bottom-up rather than a top-down solution. Let people into the country, let them work, and they'll go where the jobs are available and where the housing is cheap. They'll go to Springfield, and places like it.
And they'll show up.
"They come to work every day. They don't cause drama. They're on time," Jamie McGregor, chief executive of McGregor Metal, a family-owned business in Springfield that fabricates parts for cars and other vehicles, told the Times.
If nothing changed, Springfield would simply experience an ongoing slide into oblivion. The city has been losing population since the 1960s and more than a fifth of those who remain are below the poverty line. Translation: Anyone who had better economic prospects somewhere else was already gone, or on their way out.
"The real story is that for 80 years we were a shrinking city, and now we're growing," a local pastor told NBC News.
In other words, immigration isn't the cause of Springfield's problems. Stagnation is.
Is the influx of thousands of foreign-born workers going to be smooth? Of course not. Some culture clash is inevitable. More workers willing to pay market rates for housing and a more competitive local economy might make life marginally more difficult for, as Williamson writes, "a reliable Trump-voting constituency: marginally employed white people on the dole."
Vance and former President Donald Trump have rushed to amplify those culture clashes—and knowingly exaggerate them too, as Reason's Jacob Sullum explained yesterday. In doing so, they've demonstrated how little they understand about what make an economy work and what makes a place successful. Thriving cities, even small ones, are home to a constant churn of cooperation and competition between newcomers and natives. Places that don't grow are doomed to die.
To the parts of America that have stagnated in recent years, Democrats offer little beyond the dangled promise of federal handouts, for factories or fatter welfare checks. In reality, that means residents of Springfield end up paying for economic development that happens elsewhere.
What a tremendous opportunity that could be for Republicans. Instead, Trump and Vance are only offering magical economic thinking and a conservative-branded version of picking winners and losers. Piling more tariffs onto foreign goods won't save Springfield, and mass deportations—of legal immigrants, as Vance has threatened—would rob the town of a productive workforce.
What the Springfields of America need is more immigration, more dynamism, and less centrally planned industrial policy. There's little hope they'll be getting it soon.
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Send them to Reason staffer’s neighborhoods.
Let them get the catsup confused with the cat soup.
Reports out of Miami-Dade County regarding two horses being abducted and butchered for meat.
7 News “Just One Station”
Local story.
None of the people arrested are Haitian. They’re Cuban.
See: https://www.miaminewtimes.com/arts/meet-the-latest-guy-busted-for-selling-horse-meat-in-miami-dade-6502308 and https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/miami-man-arrested-for-illegally-selling-slaughtered-horse-meat/3183822/
Cuba ≠ United States. Someone from away coming to the US, stealing pets/animals, killing them, and using the meat for human food.
The stories I was referencing were a little after the Cuban’s actions.
A rabbit’s foot came to be known as lucky because after you butcher a rabbit and a cat, you can’t distinguish them by the carcass. So, the foot would be left on the rabbit… if you were lucky enough to get a rabbit.
Know how you can tell if an animal cooked by an Haitian immigrant was someone’s pet? It will still have the Cholera-on it.
Let them write Reason columns – couldn’t be worse!
“We are going to revitalize this town…for those migrants. You citizens can go fuck yourselves.”
Kevin Williamson is also a nasty cunt.
He needs to be reminded AI can replace him and nobody would notice a difference.
AI would notice not even it needed to replace Williamson and all would be well.
I forget who it was, but one of the writers here did a side-by-side article of hid/her article and chatgpt’s version. The ai wrote better and was both more logical and factual
Boehm, you ignorant retard, you can’t just keep accepting immigration from every shithole (and yes, Haiti is the dictionary definition of a shithole) on this planet. You need to address the stagnation, but unfettered immigration is not the way to do it. It’s fucking coastal leeches like you, Boehm, who’ve decided that it was better to offshore every bit of manufacturing we have rather than keep it in the Heartland. Fuck you and your fellow coastal dipshits. All because you wanted cheap plastic shit from China. I’d rather (as un-free-market as that may sound) raise tariffs on those goods and encourage reshoring our manufacturing capabilities. So what if you coastal assholes pay an extra couple pennies on your fucking dick massaging widgets.
*invents time machine*
ICP 1880: Boehm, you ignorant retard, you can’t just keep accepting immigration from every shithole (and yes, Italy is the dictionary definition of a shithole) on this planet.
ICP 1881: Boehm, you ignorant retard, you can’t just keep accepting immigration from every shithole (and yes, Russia is the dictionary definition of a shithole) on this planet.
ICP 1882: Boehm, you ignorant retard, you can’t just keep accepting immigration from every shithole (and yes, China is the dictionary definition of a shithole) on this planet.
Same with Germans, Irish, etc…
How many terrorists were embedded in thos European hordes? How many were eating the geese in the park? How many were given medical care and driver’s licenses?
Right, none!
Got enough straw, Strawcasmic?
That whole screed was idiotic for a number of reasons. Your brain continues to deteriorate from your severe lifelong alcoholism. Euthanasia is your best option now.
Stagnation means there are fewer jobs, so bringing in low skilled immigrants exacerbates the problem. And 15k in a 56k town is criminal.
Yes, exactly.
My high school teachers were all dweeby Democrats, but they did like to say, “Poverty is one of the main root causes of crime.”
OK, then… why would such people choose to import more of it BY THE MILLIONS, then?
Oh and then *subsidize* it with free housing and EBT cards and iPads and such while leaving our own citizens out in the cold?
I know of a foster care case that is suppose to be a “reunification” (mom gets her kid back). And the only thing stopping it is the mom is homeless and living in her car and couch surfing. Why? Well, between the skyrocketing rent — which happened not due to “corporate greed and price-gouging” but due to the eviction moratorium (everyone massively raised rents after) & government voucher “free money” rained down on landlords but ONLY for those “Blessed Migrants,” aka Illegals, as well as the shelters flooded with migrants, there is literally NOWHERE for her to live – and the shelters kick people out after a year just to make them do it all over again, anyway!
Closing your eyes, sticking your fingers in your ears, yelling “la la la,” and pretending there is no cost to 20-30 million criminal welfare leeches is either insane or deliberately evil. And kiss those libertarian ideals and natural rights like free speech, bodily autonomy, and the right to bear arms goodbye, because the world’s trash don’t believe in, or even comprehend, ANY of it.
The previous immigration didn’t *overwhelm* an entire city. At worst it set up a little immigrant neighborhood. But Little Italy and its peaceful Catholics is a very different beast than Little Somalia and its violent Muslim conquerors.
Hey Eric, I know you won’t answer but did you hear the Fed talk about why they are cutting 1/2 point? He stated because the job market is bad because of illegal immigration.
Goes against your argument so I’ll sure you’ll ignore it
Boehm is being tricky.
Using his conflation superpowers he’s attributing the positives of legal immigrants to illegal immigration, and pointing to legal immigrants again to absolve the illegals.
In demonizing the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, J.D. Vance and Donald Trump have forgotten what makes an economy work.
Cheap foreign labor is what makes an economy work.
Slavery never dies, only changes hands.
Democrats just cannot let go of slavery.
Springfield is Republican, as is Ohio. Duh, dumbass.
It’s not Republican policy that packed a city of sixty thousand with twenty thousand illegals, genius.
That’s why Springfield is the victim, of you democrats.
Who knew that “what makes an economy work” are massive social welfare programs that allow employers to hire immigrant workers for wages lower than what Americans who don’t qualify for those programs would demand? What will the “libertarians” at Reason think up next?
https://x.com/fentasyl/status/1836816800367210762
Pretty sure the Irish and Italians got all of that too. Oh wait…
Is the influx of thousands of foreign-born workers going to be smooth? Of course not.
But fuck you for resisting.
The US is not your brown dump.
Yeah, because residents in Everytown USA should be APPRECIATIVE when federal politicians unilaterally decide that Everytown needs a new population of not-from-Everytown people who speak a different language, swamp the town infrastructure, fill the schools and hospitals with special cases, and drive housing costs through the roof with an unexpected surge in demand. I’m sure that’s just the kind of Free Market and Free People dynamic they never knew they needed.
“Borders bad. Immigrant labor good.”
Koch Industries-sponsored training workshop at Reason retreat.
Sandra/OBL could weigh in on this.
The training would solely consist of repeating that in unison for three days straight. Which explains Boehm and Sullum.
“Immigration Is Better Than Industrial Policy”
Really? Well, I guess if 20 million migrants went to Haiti, it would be an economic powerhouse. What’s the industrial policy of China? State ran economy? No matter, 20 million immigrants would solve all their economic woes.
Immigrants are just human beings from another country. They bleed red and their shit smells just as bad as the “natives”. What builds an economy is freedom. Immigrants can build on top of that foundation. Most of the world is a banana republic, which is why these resourceful immigrants failed to build their own nations and want to come here.
If I remained in Korea instead of moving here, I would have had to spend like 15 hours a day in schools and learning centers, serve two years of mandatory military service, and then wish upon a star to get a job in an economy that values image, reputation and connection. Gee, why do they want to come here?
Do you think some random ass country can afford to bring in 20,000 Haitians into their smallest town, paying them housing vouchers, welfare, medical care, and ignore them driving without license for the privilege of working in Dole and auto plants? Of course businesses welcome subsidized foreign workers. But the town still remains poor and country adds to its debt.
The Springfield community has been complaining to city council as early of March this year. The “they’re eat pets” allegation is merely one of the more sensational claims. I guarantee you that none of their living situation and earning potential has changed one iota because Haitians moved in.
We don’t care, Reason. You don’t continue to employ someone who just killed your family member. No matter what the bottom line is. The economy is not the only thing at stake, the way we live, our rights and freedoms are at risk because we are importing people who do not necessarily agree with our core principles. Hell, half this country, in the form of Democrats, don’t agree with our core principles. What are the odds that the people they want to ship in here day after day after day give a s*** about our principles. Like economists have pointed out, trade is a technology. Just like forms of automation or anything else. So it is not just people showing up that helps the economy run. If we need increase automation to keep these people who don’t give a damn about our laws out then that’s what we have to do. Better yet, let them stay in their country and we can trade with them for the crap that they produce IN THERE OWN DAMN COUNTRY!!!
You are much more likely to be killed by a natural born US citizen.
Nothing helps an economy more than subsidizing food, housing, education, and healthcare for illegal aliens. Obviously, no other use of our hard-earned money could better support our economy.
This garbage makes me ashamed to be an actual libertarian, as opposed to the leftist illiberals writing for “Reason.”.
The Haitians aren’t illegal aliens.
Nor are the migrants from Central and South America.
Your comment is an example of the ignorant bigoted garbage we see here on a regular basis and you should indeed be ashamed to be a Libertarian.
If 20k Haitians is such a driving economic force in Springfield Ohio, imagine what a whole country full of Haitians would accomplish! Must be a utopia!
I’ve heard the mud cookies are to die for.
They have turned that place into the cat’s meow.
bro you collectively lost the Eating the Cats war last week just stop.
“In demonizing the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, J.D. Vance and Donald Trump have forgotten what makes an economy work.”
Taxpayer subsidized black market immigration? In order to provide a steady stream of low wage workers to key DNC (and likely in some instances GOP) donors? In an obvious attempt to change the voting demographics to keep the Democrats permanently in power?
Straight out of Adam Smith to be sure.
The headline should read, ” Legal Immigration Is Better Than Industrial Policy.”
FIFY.
Have Trump’s uber-expensive idea to turn immigration into a post-Eisenhower tribute …
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-deportation-camps_n_66e4793de4b03e3cc10020c3?lc&utm_source=cordial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hp-us-reg-must-reads_2024-09-22&utm_term=us-must-reads&email_hash=e2193bc767b8a7da3e0a46a4336a82a4c7e9685d#link-goes-offsite-reason.com
The work of private processing of immigrants by private companies given a contractual access to needful government records perhaps lacks but people willing to meet foreigners looking to enter America legally and lacks the company-view sort of legal framework to navigate such course as a viable endeavor.
Quite recently — for a clue — American passports renewal became largely a matter of renew-by-mail rather than show up at an authorized government processing queue in-person.
Mass immigration is a ponzi scheme. As soon as the current batch of immigrants get settled in, know their rights, and ask for more money, Lay them off and find another batch of migrants from somewhere else.
That is what capitalists have been doing for centuries. I lived in a mill town that successively had waves of English, Irish, Polish, Canadian, and Puerto Ricans work in the mill; every time that one group of workers would get uppity enough to unionize, the mill would hire the next ethnic group in line. (The Puerto Ricans weren’t immigrants but natural born US citizens.) Finally, the mill closed because there weren’t enough immigrants because Puerto Ricans wised up and there were now immigration quotas applied to every country in the world.
So there were 20k fabulous jobs in Springfield and nobody within commuting distance got wind of it so the town was fading away. Hmm. There’s this thing that moves the invisible hand called price. If nobody wants to sell their labor at the price offered, that price is too low. It’s not complicated. Reason is constantly telling us that immigrants do jobs that native born Americans don’t want to do. Of course if those jobs paid more plenty of people would want to do them. Instead of letting the price system work Koch/Reason libertarians want to bypass it by importing taxpayer subsidized cheap labor for selected industries. Reason advocates for free markets in every category except labor. One can only wonder why.
Immigration restrictions — and there are now quotas from every country in the world — are NOT free market.
The New York Times reported
Uh huh.
“They are paying taxes on their wages and spending money at Walmart.
Sure Jan.
On Sundays they gather at churches for boisterous, joyful services in Haitian Creole.”
Not American English?
“I don’t think [Vance] really understands from a boots-on-the-ground perspective what employers are dealing with in trying to have a consistent and reliable workforce,” McGregor explained.
And here’s what socialists and other BigGov-loving punks like Reason doesn’t understand: when you put a thumb on the scales used by free markets – whether by instituting minimum wages, or facilitating collective bargaining, or regulating/taxing an industry to absurd degrees – you futz with the concept of value. When you start disseminating toxic ideals like “living wage” or “equity in outcome” or “affirmative action” – all you’re doing is distorting value to that which cannot be realized by a free market.
The results speak for themselves: outsourcing, inflation, bankruptcy, and now this replacement labor force nonsense. A centrally planned economy is a doomed one. Period.
according to the Commerce Department. Let’s be extremely generous and assume that all 23 of those projects will reach their planned conclusions
I’m pretty sure The Gipper had something very explicit to say on that point.
Some culture clash is inevitable.
They’re eating housepets, Eric. That’s a little more than mere “culture clash.”
“Not American English?”
So only English speakers should be allowed to immigrate? I attended synagogue services this morning with a lot of folks who speak Hebrew and not a lot of English. Immigrants.
“They’re eating housepets, Eric.”
That is a lie. The person who made up the lie admitted it and apologized. And you know that. You are a nativist bigot who ought to be ashamed of your bigotry but are proud of it. Ditto Trump and Vance. The Trump campaign was told that the allegations had no basis in reality yet Trump still brought it up at the debate. Policies not grounded in reality don’t work very well.
In demonizing the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, J.D. Vance and Donald Trump have forgotten what makes an economy work.
Educated people with useful skills?
Not necessarily. There is absolutely a market for low skill jobs with uneducated/inexperienced staff.
The problem is that the State forces the employer to pay said staff FAR more than what the job or their skillset is worth. So then they turn to outsourcing, automation, scab labor, or under the table employment. An overly-entitled society screeches about living wages, and then its bureaucrats increase the artificial overhead of an employer – cutting into his profits, narrowing his margins, and netting him absolutely nothing of value in return.
What upside, for example, is giving an assembly line worker (and his family) a health insurance plan as part of their salary. Who cares if he gets sick or even dies – that assembly line worker is 100% expendable and immediately replaceable.
And we have no shortage of unskilled labor in this country. An additional problem is low-skilled/inexperienced people who think they’re not replaceable. Or, worse, who think they’re above unskilled labor because they have a fancy piece of paper that deludes them into thinking they have an education (let alone skills or experience). Every job that a Haitian took under the table in Ohio, is one that could have gone to an American with a liberal arts degree (or NO degree, not even HS). That American brings the exact same thing to the table as the Haitian. Actually, a little more even – because they probably speak English.
But the arrogant American doesn’t want that job, and the overburdened employer doesn’t want to pay them more than what that job is worth.
It’s the boot on the neck of the free markets. Has been for a century. We should have never overturned Lochner. And if I ever get my hands on a time machine, you can bet your butt that I’m skipping right past Mao, Stalin, and Hitler, and I’m going to kick FDR’s dad in the nuts as hard as I can sometime in early-to-mid 1881.
Isn’t it amazing how Immigrants are soooo good at growing economies the #1 reason they run to the US is their own economy is in the sh*tter.
Only MORE broken parts will fix your broken car!!! /s
Immigration leans 75%+ towards [Na]tional So[zi]al[ism] by voter statistics.
Immigration should only be 1/4 of what it is.
We have a labor shortage in this country and you want to make it worse.
A labor shortage with 33% of the population on welfare.
Importing those who support (by 75%+ margin) a $50/hr minimum wage and a welfare-state as well as statistically being 51% (more than half) a welfare-child doesn’t help a labor shortage.
A mass influx of people to the degree that has occurred in Springfield Ohio is not good for anyone except for the corporation that is willing to exploit the newcomers and keep wages down.
Any honest person would have to admit that there are too many immigrants too fast to be successfully absorbed by this small community.
Just as the new immigrants are people, the existing people are also people. Both have real stories, issues and concerns. Culturally they are different and it takes time to blend and weave into a cohesive society that is beneficial for everyone.
Instead the mass influx to an insane percentage of growth has resulted in a country within a country and as a result there is isolation and not integration.
Eric is being ignorant where he is missing the larger picture and only seeing the short term dollar signs.
Over 36% of the people now living here in New York City were born outside the US. That is a much higher % than in Springfield. Our economy is growing and immigrants are a major part of that. In fact if you look at every booming US city you will find large immigrant populations. Unwelcoming places run by nativist bigots will continue to suffer economic decline and I have no sympathy.
Ya know like CA?
Funny how all these immigrants were never able to grow their own nations economy.
Is it that border fairy-dust that changes everything or what?
Let’s bring 20,000 Haitians into Rehoboth Beach, if it’s so awesome to have them present and such a benefit to the community.
Heck, remember when 50 migrants showed up on Martha’s Vineyard? They were “voluntarily taken to a military base for support”.
I love that Boehm quotes the NYTs, always a bastion on unbiased reporting that Hatians are working in factories etc. He could have called around himself as a ‘reporter.’
so in places like Springfield there were apparently thousands of open middle class paying jobs that no one wanted to work so we needed to import 10’s of thousands of unskilled, clueless illegals who can not even speak English to fill them?
LOLWUT?
Where in the article does it say anything about ‘middle class paying jobs’? And how could ‘unskilled, clueless illegals’ possibly perform those jobs?
And who said anything about the Haitians being ‘illegal’?
Look i get it you are a low IQ progtard so i will have to spell it out in real easy words….
20k Haitians are invaders being “resettled” into a small town by Democrats. they are not from here, they are from a third world shit hole socialist paradise.
Somehow magically the town is going to be “revitalized”. Where are 20k people going to work? Jobs do not just magically appear in the real world.
Haiti is the opposite of socialist. It doesn’t really have a government anymore. Libertarian paradise! Thank you for admitting that extreme libertarianism doesn’t work very well.
Springfield’s population had lost 20,000 people over the past few decades and in 2014 it actually started a campaign to encourage immigrants to settle there. So the “resettled by Democrats” is a lie, too.
The Haitians aren’t illegal.
The problems Vance attributes to immigrants are really problems arising from the entry of large numbers of people with different cultural perspectives into a community. For example, after World War II, a lot of drunken, drug-addled, shiftless hillbillies moved into Middletown, Ohio, placing a severe strain on local resources at a time when the federal government didn’t provide any help. For further details, see Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance.
Doing the jobs Americans won’t do…without getting paid higher wages. Importing large numbers of low-skilled workers depresses wages of the lowest skilled people who are already here. They also drive up the cost of low-income housing, flood teetering health care systems and schools, etc. Low-skilled workers who are already here get screwed in multiple different ways.
The immigrants of earlier times from Ireland, Germany and other parts of the world came here and did not cost the taxpayers Billions of Dollars or commit the capital crimes we read about these days.
Actually those 19th century immigrants were FAR more violent and led to massive crime waves and corruption. See the movie “Gangs of New York” for examples of such. Similar stories can be told about most large cities that existed at that time. Baltimore and Philadelphia were probably even worse than New York. And you are more likely to be murdered today by a natural born US citizen than by an immigrant.
Meanwhile, Sweden is offering migrants up to $34,000 to leave the country. Why would they do that, if the migrants are so valuable?
https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-offer-immigrants-34000-leave-country-1953451
Racism. But I find it interesting that you find the former economic policy of Sweden admirable, with its nearly confiscatory income taxes and huge welfare state.
LOL… So not not offering a huge welfare state to immigrants is racist?
Yep; That basically summarizes the truth behind the “open borders” crowd.
Never realizing I guess that the very reason they need to immigrate to the US is their “Government will take care of us” (conquer and consume) mentality destroyed their own nation.
Unfortunately it’s not likely to change. Every few years Americans ‘debate immigration’ on the assumption that it’s somehow super-easy to legally get into the US. No, it’s not. It’s fucking not. An employer needs to pay $10,000 or so in expenses for the privilege of sponsoring me. I am not permitted to pay this money, the employer must. then there are the multi-year waiting times, etc.
Yet somehow every time people pretend that they live in some super-free lolbert country that ‘is inviting unlimited flows of immgirants’. No, they do not. Proof: I am not typing this from the USA.
I have a couple of points to make.
The nearest Honda plant is located in Marysville, 35 miles away from Springfield and much closer to Columbus than Springfield. A job at the Honda plant sounds great if you are fluent in English, have relevant work experience, and have a car. However, I suspect a small portion of the Haitians have these qualifications. The Dole plant is in Springfield and employs about 900. The Dole plant has more unskilled jobs than Honda. Even if Dole fired all of its unskilled employees and replaced them with Haitians, I doubt it would make much of a difference in the unemployment problem. So where are the 10,000 to 25,000 Haitians going to get a job?
Many of the complaints to the Springfield council members are about the overwhelmed welfare system. Non-Haitian residents are being squeezed out of the food banks and medical services. This is the same problem being faced by large cities like New York and Denver. Unfortunately, Springfield’s immigrant population is a higher percentage than that of New York or Denver.
The most important question yet to be answered is what happens when the subsidies go away. In Aurora, Colorado, the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), also called the COVID-19 Stimulus Package, subsidized migrant housing. I would not be surprised if this bill also provided housing subsidies for Haitians. Since this bill is unlikely to be renewed, what happens to the large population of unemployed immigrants in New York, Denver, Aurora, and Springfield?
Yes, you got it figured out: Choosers not choosing for equitable benefit but rather to benefit party planning. It could be 23 5-year plans for 23 cities other than Springfield. The point is not to treat people to fairness and equity but rather — as I see it — to reward those who pick their candidates out of a cracker jack political party box.
You guessed it, that smart people know how to investigate for themselves how to find the best candidates who are most likely running a fairness and equity campaign (maybe you see an obvious one, maybe you don’t), if not how to take a beneficial step in such a course. For their benefit, they will dangle a treat that you can relate to as if that will be what you are “getting.” And unless you become marginalized as many later become who listened only to the rhetoric and did not try to test their theory that there would be party rewards, you may get that promise. If you bought what interested a lot of voters, numerously, you may get a bunch of promises kept.
The horror of depending on any appreciable act of favor alone speaks to anyone at a professional level trying to make any important, profitable sale that matters because of some astrological variance such as a promise that if a certain sales quota is made, then there will be a guaranteed bonus. The somewhat recent “B”-grade horror film ‘Black Friday’ (2021) alludes to big toy store employee incentives, for example. You want those customers. You need that rewarding bonus like you need a big win.
The difference in looking at political promises of the one-party versus the Libertarian party ends with a list of tasks that shall be accomplished during the elected term. Look at each obvious selling point and none of those will be happening at the definitive level.
But I like what I read about politics being a set of promises that voters can be voting for. A campaign that can actually accomplish a long list of valued promises looks like a potential winning ticket to me. Ending taxation, restoring the constitution to recognizable authority, championing the free market — do we have each of these things moreso than not already except for district violators somewheres amid 50,000 or so towns of the nation during any given year with maybe a notorious outbreak of disobedience or constitutional crisis in a given year?
Being strung along by promises that are not for the benefit of Springfield, (being at its immediate expense) but rather to benefit those 23 other units of economic endeavors, thus without advance guarantee of fairness and equity, all we can do would be to look out and say that whatever was popular that year with voters was the extent of the actual, substantial reward. Surprise, but there were benefits that most people will never benefit from and never know about!
How true may that be?