Tag: Omnibus Bill

Obama to Replace Out-of-Work Americans With Foreigners

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

obamamyworkObama is about to begin his final year as President of the United States by extending his longest digit to the American Workforce.

As we say in Southern Fairy Tales, instead of “Once Upon a Time”,

Y’all ain’t gonna believe this Sh**!

Breitbart.com reported yesterday that

As the nation prepares to ring in the New Year, President Barack Obama is preparing a colossal new executive action that could print-up work permits for a huge number of foreign white-collar graduates every year, above and beyond the levels set by Congress.

This executive action, which directly bypasses Congressional lawmakers, is likely to reverberate across the presidential race, as GOP voters look to choose a nominee they believe will most effectively roll back the President’s still-expanding agenda.  And it will certainly raise new security concerns as it covers categories of immigration utilized by migrants from the Middle East and nearby regions.

President Barack Obama’s Department of Homeland Security plans to publish the proposed rule tomorrow, the last day of 2015.

The 181-page rule focuses primarily on giving work-permits to foreign college-grads who will compete against Americans for white collar jobs, despite the large number of American graduates now stuck in lower-wage positions and struggling to pay off college debts. The rule will also make each foreign graduate much cheaper for U.S. employers to hire than many U.S.-born college grads.

“Obama has gone the Full Monty to bust the immigration system,” says immigration lawyer John Miano. “What is going on is he is effectively giving Green Cards to people on H-1B visas who are unable to get Green Cards due to the [annual] quotas… it could be over 100,000.”

The new rules to aid foreign college-graduates are an extension of his earlier efforts to bypass popular laws against illegal immigration, said Miano, the co-author of a new book about the painful impact of the white-collar guest-worker programs, titled “Sold Out.”

This executive action could have been prevented, however, had the bipartisan 2016 omnibus funding included language proposed by Immigration Subcommittee ChairmanSen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

In April, Sessions proposed language to reduce and cap the number of work-permits — dubbed “Employment Authorization Documents” — that could be distributed to foreign workers each year. Sessions’ recommendation was rejected by GOP and Democratic leaders in Congress, and so House SpeakerRep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) ’s December omnibus is enabling the president’s new executive action.

In 2012, Obama bypassed laws against illegal immigration by awarding two-year work-permits to at least 800,000 younger foreign migrants who were brought here by their illegal immigrant parents. In 2015, the courts blocked his November 2014 amnesty plan to award work-permits to roughly 5 million resident migrants who have U.S.-born children. From 2009 to 2015, Obama also allowed at least 250,000 Central American migrants into the United States to request asylum or refugee status. In 2013, Obama added roughly 2 million extra foreign workers to the economy, while roughly 4 million young Americans began looking for work.

“The objective here is to strip American workers of their protections from foreign labor embodied in the Green Card quotas” that are set by Congress, not the White House, Miano said.

The annual award of Green Cards — and vital preliminary work-permits — is limited by quotas that mostly impact the many Indian and Chinese graduates who come to the United States as H-1B guest-workers, or who first arrive as students and later start working in the United States via the Optional Practical Training and H-1B programs.

Roughly 650,000 foreign graduates are working in the United States for roughly 5 years each under the H-1B program. Roughly 120,000 foreign graduates of U.S. colleges are working in the United States for two years each via the OPT program, often called the ‘mini-H-1B program.’ Without this new regulation, most of those foreign graduates will return home after several years, forcing companies to hire U.S. graduates in their place.

The foreign graduates typically get entry-level jobs that would otherwise go to new U.S. business graduates, designers, doctors, programmers, engineers and scientists.  Also, the foreign graduates are used to replace mid-level American professionals once they seek mid-career pay-raises to help pay for mortgages and child-rearing.

According to the pending regulation, “many of these changes are primarily aimed at improving the ability of U.S. employers to hire and retain [foreign] high-skilled workers who are beneficiaries of approved employment-based immigrant visa petitions and are waiting to become lawful permanent residents (LPRs), while increasing the ability of such [foreign] workers to seek promotions, accept lateral positions with current employers, change employers, or pursue other employment options.”

The new policy also creates a large economic incentive for U.S. employers to hire foreign college-grads instead of new American college-grads.

That’s because the policy will allow U.S. employers to hire foreign college graduates at very low salaries. The foreign graduates will gladly take those low-wage white-collar jobs because the new policy allows them to get deferred payments from the federal government — valuable permanent work-permits that are the first step on the golden pathway to Green Cards and citizenship.

In contrast, employers can’t pay American graduates with this combination of low-salaries plus the federal promise of citizenship — because the Americans already have citizenship.

That means employers must pay more money to hire American college-grads than they would to hire foreign college-grads. That puts a huge disadvantage on American graduates because they need higher salaries to pay off their expensive U.S. college debt.

 As we journey through this Quixotic Quest, known as our everyday lives, we come across windmills, which we must tilt with daily, known as “priorities”.

Priorities are unique, perplexing things, as they vary from individual to individual.

For those of us between employment, it is finding a meaningful, well-paying job, so that we may provide for our families. For other Americans, it could be the care of their elderly loved ones. For others, their priority may be to climb the Corporate Ladder at their place of employment.

For the parents of 30-year-old Liberals and “puff puff” “l”ibertarians, it may be that their priority is to get their slacker of a “kid” to move out of the basement.

But, I digress…

Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm), the 44th President of these United States, has a problem.

(No, I don’t mean his overbearing wife, Mooch, and her desire to build shopping carts, which will tell us what “healthy” foods to buy. That’s a subject for another blog. Besides, it takes that heifer two rips to haul a.. …well, you know.)

Americans have noticed that there is a great disconnect between the citizens of the United States and their president.  It’s not just his stand-offish behavior.  There’s something else going on.  He was not raised like the majority of Americans.

He didn’t have rubber dart gun wars in the neighborhood backyards.  He didn’t play Nerf football in the front yards.  He didn’t go to Vacation Bible School.  I don’t know if he was ever told to stand with his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance.

It is this disconnect that is at the heart of the trouble with Obama’s presidency.   Hope and Change have turned into despair and disbelief.  Obama has never understood the shared values of average Americans, because the people who raised him did not share those values, either.  It is the concern that we feel for one another, that shared American value system, that is causing a great awakening. One of the main reasons Obama wants control of the internet is so we can’t communicate with each other and he can control the message.

Obama’s problem is one of MISPLACED PRIORITIES.

This problem started the very first time he took the Oath of Office, which clearly outlines his duties as President of the United States of America…

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

It is very obvious, to even the most casual observer that Obama care more for those in other countries than he does for American Citizens.

Over 92,000,000 Americans remain expunged from America’s Workforce and here is the President of the United States replacing them with foreigners.

Any way you approach this fact, it remains indefensible.

I realize that I could have grown this Blog exponentially, by listing all of Obama’s MISPLACED PRIORITIES en masse.

However, i believe that simplicity in communication is the best way to get one’s point across.

The point I have been attempting to maker today, is a rather simplistic one, in deference to the Liberals whom I know read this blog on a daily basis, attempting to catch me in some sort of “lie”, which only they can see.

Obama’s MISPLACED PRIORITIES have not only tarnished this Shining City Upon a ill, but it has endangered the continued existence of America and her citizens, with every day this past week, bringing a new example of Obama’s deliberate ineptness and shallow behavior, in the poor fulfillment of his Oath of Office, to the degree to which average Americans are concerned about their children’s’ and grandchildren’ sfuture.

Obama has failed miserably in his sworn duties as President of the United States.

But, then again, perhaps the only promise he intended to keep, was to “radically change” America.

…for the worse.

God protect us.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Paul Ryan and the Omnibus Bill: Second Verse, Same as the First?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

paul-ryan-beard-547x350 (2)Late Tuesday night, Speaker of the House unveiled the new Omnibus Bill.

Reaction, shall we say, is “mixed”.

Politico.com reports that

The House Freedom Caucus hates the massive government-funding bill: Spending levels are billions of dollars higher than what conservatives wanted, and at least two top policy priorities — language addressing Syrian refugees and so-called sanctity of life — were cut.

But unlike past fiscal battles, when lawmakers took shots at GOP leaders and tried to tank bills, this time conservatives are largely holding their fire. Even as they vow to oppose the package, many are still praising Speaker Paul Ryan’s handling of the $1.1 trillion spending bill and $680 billion in tax breaks.

“In terms of the process, I can tell you I’ve had more meaningful conversations with the speaker and leadership in the last couple of weeks than I think I have in the last couple of years,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who instigated the revolt against Speaker John Boehner that led to Boehner’s resignation this fall. “I would give it an A-plus in terms of trying to reach out to the rank and file.”

Virginia Republican Dave Brat, a Freedom Caucus member who also sits on the budget panel, said Ryan has also gained support because he has been “credible on regular order” — Congress-speak for empowering committees and rank-and-file members — and has already teed up the budget process for the beginning of 2016, a starting point unheard of in recent years.

“The end product here is just cleaning the barn; it’s a disaster,” Brat said of the spending and tax deal. “We’re breaking our pledge on the budget caps to the American people, we’ve lost fiscal discipline, and we’re throwing it all on the next generation.”

But in the same breath, Brat praised Ryan: “Not only is he saying the right things, he is lining it up to do the right things … and then leadership can’t hijack the budget at the end of the year and throw the kitchen sink, which we just did.”

Praise from members of the conservative flank is a sign that they believe Ryan (R-Wis.) is trying to chart a new course in his nascent speakership. The conservatives feel more included in the process and said Ryan’s staff has been vocal about wanting their feedback. But the lawmakers are also planning to watch the speaker closely in 2016, when they say he’ll have more control over the appropriations process and Boehner can’t be blamed.

To be sure, members of the House Freedom Caucus have little positive to say about the omnibus that will fund the government through 2016. The House is expected to pass the government funding measure Friday with significant help from Democratic lawmakers.

“It’s pretty bad,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Freedom Caucus chairman. “How can you not put the refugee issue in there? It makes so much sense. We were clear that if that goes in and [we get] something pretty good on the pro-life [provisions they wanted], we thought we could get a number of us [to vote in favor]. But that’s not going to happen.”

Jordan led an effort Wednesday to amend the omnibus package to strip out a cybersecurity provision that many conservatives oppose and also include Syrian refugee language. Ryan has said the omnibus is not open for changes.

One Republican priority — lifting a four-decade-old ban on U.S. oil exports — has received some praise from conservatives as a potential job creator. But it wasn’t enough to win many of them over.

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said the lifting of the oil export ban is a good thing, but “there are about $1.3 trillion” other reasons to vote against the omnibus.

“[It’s a] very big deal for my district, but I didn’t have a single call about it,” Huelskamp said. “The calls are coming in about Syria. Calls are coming in about life issues. Calls are coming about everything else. Somebody on K Street wanted that, but Main Street didn’t.”

Lawmakers like Arizona Rep. Matt Salmon oppose it because language to increase the vetting standards for Syrian and Iraqi nationals looking to come to the U.S. as refugees was dropped. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) objected to the cybersecurity language, which was added at the last minute. Other Freedom Caucus members pushed for a series of provisions opposing abortion rights that weren’t included.

But the blame for the final product, conservatives say, rests on Boehner and Senate Democrats. Ryan just inherited the mess, they argue.

Instead, they focus on other promises the Wisconsin Republican made when he took the job.

“Paul made some pretty sustainable commitments about things we’ll do next year: a major overhaul of our tax system, welfare reform, replacing Obamacare,” Salmon said. “These are major things. If we do those things and define clearly what we stand for, that’s the best we can hope for.”

Now, I realize that Paul Ryan, sporting his new “man-beard”, just took over as Speaker of the House, after Cryin’ John Boehner got the heck out of Dodge.

And, it is going to take a while for Ryan to straighten out the mess that the spineless Boehner left him.

Additionally, Ryan has made promises that the Conservative Members of the House of Representatives seem to be excited about.

The key word is “PROMISES”.

To paraphrase the current batch of Geico Commercials,

Politicians promise. That’s what they do.

By the way, did you catch in that article, that the Vichy Republicans still want to “replace” Obamacare?

That would be like CBS deciding to replace the rapidly-taking  Stephen Colbert with Alec Baldwin.

It would still be horrible.

At least one Congressman gets it, per Breitbart.com…

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) slammed the immigration implications of the year-end spending bill Wednesday, saying the omnibus represents a “betrayal” of voters that fully funds President Obama’s immigration agenda while also increasing the number of low-skilled foreign guest workers allowed. 

“The more than 2,000 page year-end funding bill contains a dramatic change to federal immigration law that would increase by as much as four-fold the number of low-wage foreign workers provided to employers under the controversial H-2B visa program, beyond what is currently allowed,” Sessions said in a statement.

The foreign nationals who enter the U.S. on H-2B visas come for low-skilled nonagricultural jobs and work in hotels, construction, landscaping and the like, jobs, Sessions argued, that millions of Americans would like to have.

“At a time of record immigration – with a full 83 percent of the electorate wanting immigration frozen or reduced – the GOP-led Congress is about to deliver Obama a four-fold increase to one of the most controversial foreign worker programs.  The result?  Higher unemployment and lower wages for Americans,” Sessions continued.

He further quoted the Economic Policy Institute’s conclusion that “wages were stagnant or declining for workers in all of the top 15 H-2B occupations between 2004 and 2014,” and that unemployment increased in all but 15 H-2B occupations between those same years. Further, he quoted EPI, “Flat and declining wages coupled with such high unemployment rates over such a long period of time suggest a loose labor market—an over-supply of workers rather than an under-supply.’”

The provision to vastly increase the number of H-2B visas was included in the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill released in the early morning hours of Wednesday. The House is slated to vote on he bill Friday.

According to Sessions, the American people elected Republicans to the majority in Congress in 2014 as a rejection of the Obama administration’s immigration policies.

“That loyalty has been repaid with betrayal,” he said.

In addition to the increase in H-2B visa allowances, Sessions pointed to the lack of conditions placed on the President’s request for increased refugee admissions, meaning Obama could bring in as many refugees — who are immediately eligible for welfare once admitted— as he desires.

”This will ensure that at least 170,000 green card, refugee and asylum approvals are issued to migrants from Muslim countries over just the next 12 months,” Sessions said.

The Alabama lawmaker continued, recalling that in his capacity as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, he send a list of proposals for the omnibus to appropriators intended to “improve immigration enforcement and block presidential lawlessness.” While those proposals were not included, funding for Obama’s refugee effort was.

“The bill also funds sanctuary cities, allows the President to continue issuing visas to countries that refuse to repatriate violent criminal aliens, and funds the President’s ongoing lawless immigration actions – including his unimpeded 2012 executive amnesty for alien youth,” Sessions argued.

Sessions added, “As feared, the effect is to fund the President’s entire immigration agenda.”

He concluded by highlighting the recent frustration Republican voters have voiced, saying that “GOP voters are in open rebellion” because of this bill.

”They have come to believe that their party’s elites are not only uninterested in defending their interests but – as with this legislation, and fast-tracking the President’s international trade pact – openly hostile to them,” he said. ”This legislation represents a further disenfranchisement of the American voter.”

And, boys and girls, that is while “outsiders” are leading the pack of Republican Presidential Candidate Hopefuls.

Americans, such as myself, out here in “Flyover Country”, or as we call it, “America’s Heartland”, are tired of the Republicans, whom we voted into office in the last two Midterm Elections, giving them control of BOTH Houses of Congress, acting like Democrats, exhibiting fiscal irresponsibility, possessing a disdain for their constituents’ concern about Social Issues, and acting with impunity, forgetting who gave them their cushy jobs.

Their deaf arrogance provided the opportunity for a entrepreneur and showman, with no political experience whatsoever, to vault to the top of the Republican Primary.

Trump is playing both the Main Stream Media and the Republican Elite like he is Charlie Daniels and they are the fiddle.

And, in second place, is a Senator, who is actually championing the viewpoint of average Americans.

Ted Cruz is sharper than a Ginsu Knife and his momentum is peaking at just the right time.

As we move toward the Presidential Election of 2016, those Republicans who believe that they can maintain status quo, appear to be heading toward a traumatic shock which will rival the sight of Cailyn Jenner in a bikini.

Strap yourselves in, boys and girls. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Until He Comes,

KJ