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Leaders of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, the Illinois Restaurant Association and the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association were among the more than 100 employers and business group leaders from more than a dozen states who last month signed an open letter coordinated by the American Business Immigration Coalition asking the White House to allow states to sponsor work permits for new migrants and longtime undocumented workers.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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We do such an expensive bad job of managing immigration into our country. Everywhere you turn – at the border, in the states-n-cities where these people wind up, in the courts-n-agencies where these people’s affairs are handled – none of them works well, and they’re typically at war with one another over something. I’m not even sure, as a practical matter, whether our Federal Government even recognizes that there is such a thing as an ‘illegal’ immigrant. It seems like once anyone gets across our border, no matter how they do it, they become ‘legal.’ An ‘asylum seeker’ or ‘economic… Read more »
Trump had the right idea — merit based immigration for those that have skills and/or education to be a benefit, not a burden to America
Cross out the famous ”Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore” to be replaced by what? Maybe “Give me your well educated, rich, Oxford educated, privileged….? Somehow “America” takes on a very different meaning, and one that the many current citizens here as the rest of the world would revile.
When Emma Lazarus’ poem was written, America needed massive amounts of labor — skilled or unskilled — to build up a developing country. That is no longer the case. In addition, the immigrants of that era came LEGALLY — not by breaking US immigration laws. Moreover, the immigrants who came to this country in the late 19th/early 20th century didn’t immediately demand that the taxpayers support them. They had to have the ability to support themselves or rely on friends or family. Next, if tax dollars are to be spent on those in poverty today, it should be Americans who… Read more »
Okay, you’ve explained your point of view very nicely. Thank you.
You are quite welcome. And thank you for showing how disagreement can be civil and respectful.
You made that very easy for me to do in that you weren’t at all strident or all that strongly political. In short, your logic and way of expressing yourself were powerful without simultaneously being condemning, making me an instant convert on that topic at least. The credit goes to you, and I devoutly wish we could all read more civil commentary here.
Thank you for the positive feedback — very much appreciated