-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
While Republicans have been trying to leech the credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, President Obama has upstaged them by laying out his immigration reform plan. This is a signature political issue that the Republicans have tried to make their own. However, the E-Verify program will test whether they really want to solve the problem or whether, like bin Laden, they’re more interested in maintaining the issue for its political usefulness.
The E-Verify system looks for a match between the name and SSN of the worker who applies for a job. If there’s a mismatch then the worker may be undocumented, or the worker has to contact the SSA to get the records corrected. The E-Verify program, if widely implemented, would dramatically reduce the incentive for illegal entry.
However, business hates it. The Florida Chamber of Congress has succeeded in getting mandatory E-Verify removed from a Florida immigration reform bill. Republicans are caught between their business overlords and the Tea Party.
The Florida Chamber of Congress cites out-of-date error rates and concerns over identity theft as the basis for their objection to mandatory E-Verify. Could it be there’s another reason? Maybe it’s because businesses can take advantage of the illegal’s vulnerability and pay them less than the minimum wage and violate work safety rules, as pointed out in Obama’s recent speech.
The error rates for E-Verify are steadily improving with most errors occurring due to typos and changes in names or citizenship that are not reported to the Social Security system. Workers need to get these errors fixed in order to receive their full Social Security benefits to which they are entitled.
The problem with identity theft occurs when an undocumented worker uses someone else’s (matching) name and SSN when applying for a job. That problem has been solved by something called “E-Verify Self Check” where individuals can access their status before applying for a job. The system knows whom you’ve worked for over the years and can ask the kind of questions that only the legitimate worker would be able to answer correctly. Therefore, workers can be verified and identity thieves won’t be able to verify their data.
Another problem for E-Verify is the case of Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting that is before the Supreme Court (Kagan, J., recused). At issue is a 2006 Arizona statute, the Legal Arizona Workers Act that requires all employers to participate in the E-Verify program, which is preempted by a federal law that specifically makes that system voluntary. The law was signed by then-governor of Arizona Janet Napolitano, now the Secretary of Homeland Security, the department that runs E-Verify. What you have is the Obama administration’s Solicitor General arguing against the most effective tool in the administration’s arsenal against illegal immigration.
As pointed out by Justice Ginsburg during oral arguments:
How can Arizona take a Federal resource, which the Federal Government says is voluntary except in certain circumstances, and turn it into something that’s mandatory?
The E-Verify Modernization Act of 2011 seeks to make E-Verify permanent and mandatory. It will be interesting to see if the bill suffers the same fate as the Florida legislation.
H/T: VC, Miami Herald, Adam Serwer, Daily Finance.
If real life were considered, it would destroy their theory, and they don’t want THAT.~Tony C.
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Idunno. If my life gets any more ‘American’ I may have to become a libertarian….:)
@Roco: The fact that the vast majority of us WANT those public works and projects does not seem to register with you. Unless you are typing from prison, none of us are keeping you here. Like all of us, your participation is voluntary. Pack a few sandwiches and start walking; you’ll get to some lawless wasteland eventually.
Isn’t that the libertarian ideal? If your current location isn’t working for you, just pick up and move, there is work somewhere else! Plus lower taxes and fewer regulations.
C’mon, Roco, as part of my commitment to helping others achieve their dreams, I’ll chip in a few white-bread and American Cheese sandwiches for nuthin’. With Real Mayo, that’s the luxury version! Just give me the border town address and I’ll mail a box of ’em as soon as I’m sure you are there.
So I expect to hear from you soon. Unless, of course, your libertarian ideals do not really apply to you, and you can’t just up and leave because you have too many geographical tie-downs you’d have to deal with. You know, the house, the family, the friends you’d leave behind, the job you don’t want to give up, the job your wife won’t give up, whatever.
Those little real-life details are so often ignored by libertarians, and for damn good reason, too: If real life were considered, it would destroy their theory, and they don’t want THAT.
Also, Roco dear, pie in the sky social engineering projects? The True Wealth of a Country stands on and is dependant upon its workers and the lifestyles that sustain them. Profits cease when no one can afford to buy. And the only real social engineering I see is the fascist undermining of the american taxpayer at the hands of those who they bailed out of thier greedy bankruptcies and ill managements. Get it? You probably won’t and I doubt you will see it (a healthy wealthy USA) again in your lifetime. But have fun towing that hardline you are drawing for everyone else…
“greed is good, it creates the wealth you moochers use for all of your pie in the sky social engineering and public/social works projects.” ~Roco
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Greed does not create wealth. Hard work and careful husbandry creates wealth. Assholes who are greedy destroy wealth….especially in thier attempts to get wealth wthout the aforementioned hardwork and husbandry. The country looks this way because selfish abusive creepy moneylusters don’t care who gets hurt when they steal under carefully crafted veils of ‘good greed’.
Earlier someone on the blog posted about the difference between wealth and $$$. This country used to be wealthy but it has been sold (out) to those whose eyes are full of $$$.
Awwwww.
The po’ lil’ sociopath’s got nuthin’ to come back with but piss an’ vinegar.
It’s not my fault you’ve chosen to defend the indefensible and that your arguments are practically self-defeating crap, He Who Posts Under Many Other Names.
Greed is the antithesis of good. It’s considered a vice in every philosophical system except your pathetic objectivism and considered a sin by every major religion. Greed is not only evil, greed creates suffering rather than abates it. Greed is counter-productive to building civilizations. It is childish and vainglorious. Greed is simple. Greed is ego. Greed is stupid.
Kinda like you, ol’ foamy mouth greed boy.
The madder you get? The more I win.
Your buttons are soooooo easy to push, I’ve created the self-mopping mop in your case. If you don’t like having your “examples” of how “greed is good” ridiculed – along with yourself I might add since you are proud to be greedy?
Then stop being ridiculous.
I only ridicule the ridiculous and the evil.
That I drive you in a fit of rage with barest of effort?
Well, that’s just funny.
Looks like Roco the libertarian troll is back. Nothing like an ad hominem attack when you run out of ideas. Bud, you do not really want to match wits in the area of creative insults with this crowd. It could get really ugly, if you are tired of trying to make actual debate points and just want to get down and dirty, I am sure there are some here who will engage you in that department. Hope your asbestos suit is back from the cleaners.
greed is good, it creates the wealth you moochers use for all of your pie in the sky social engineering and public/social works projects.
You couldn’t wipe the floor with me if I was a mop.
But duh, the government gets some of that return for their investment. You truly are stupid and simple. Do you honestly think that government doesn’t get a piece of that action?
The word moron comes to mind but I think that would be a compliment in your case.
Stick to shit you know, like cleaning cat boxes. Economics isn’t your strong suit, neither is the philosophy of law.
Only thing you do well is redirect and written assault. But even assault is getting lame, its the same old tired shit over and over again. It was interesting at first but know it’s just dull and witless.
Let the less fortunate go out and get a job, oh that’s right they cant because of progressive economic policies.
@Roco: who sets interest rates?
Unfortunately, private enterprise sets interest rates; the only thing the fed controls is the interest between banks, which bears almost no correlation to, say, credit card rates, or mortgage rates.
Personally, I would get rid of the Fed and let interest rates be controlled by the market with a few regulations that prevent predation or the shifting of responsibility. For example, say the company that approved the applicant must service the loan for the entire life of the loan; they cannot sell the loan, they cannot sell rights to the payments, they cannot split up the interest and principle payments and sell rights to one of them, or any partial financial interest in one of them, or any options on one of them: You make the loan, you collect the payments, and that is the deal. If the buyer defaults you foreclose and sell the house.
Make banks what the USED to be and interest rates will take care of themselves, banks will return to the status of one rung above a grocery store, bankers will return to the middle class workers they used to be, running tight, reliable, conservative businesses with a 5% margin.
The fact is that everybody wants to define the rules by which society operates which is what “ruling” means. In that sense everybody wants to rule; from about the age of two forward, with the possible exception of those so mentally challenged they cannot comprehend the idea of “rules of behavior.”
That is part of human nature too; everybody has an innate sense of fairness and what others should and should not do. Even Libertarians and Randaholics and pacifist Buddhist monks would prohibit SOME behaviors; NOBODY really believes in unrestrained absolute freedom.
@Puzzling: natural laws cannot be suspended by the power of faith …
Precisely MY point. One of the natural laws built into the psyche of humans (and evident in infants younger than 1) is called compassion. Not fake compassion, the real thing, the “we have to stop and help that stranger” kind of compassion.
Humans are a tribal animal. Cooperation (deferring to the tribe), pitching in for the tribe, and sharing with the tribe for nothing is in our human nature. So is selfihsness, jealousy, and nothing-to-lose rage and violence. The maldevelopments of absolute sefishness is sociopathy, a complete lack of empathy. This is a developmental error just as much as a withered arm or blind eye or congenital deafness. That is also part of natural law, nature plays the odds and sometimes makes mistakes.
A system that does not comport to human nature will not survive. The “entitlements” you talk about are not “entitlements” at all, that is sociopathic derogatory language engineering and no sane Liberal should use it. Entitlements are privileges given to people of title, the word was invented as shorthand for what the Duke could do that a peasant could not: He was “entitled,” meaning a member of the elite royal court bestowed with a TITLE by the King.
What YOU are talking about is called charity and charitable behavior is one component of natural human behavior. That’s how we work, it is how a tribe works, and why a tribe stays together at all, instead of just disintegrating and wandering off into self-reliant nuclear family groups (which are massively more likely to meet disaster).
Helping other humans in need is part of human nature. It is built in, men risk (and lose) their lives to save others (especially children) that are complete strangers, when they could have safely watched them drown, or burn, or choke to death, or bleed out, and then gone on with their lives.
Why do you think people do that, in real life? Why is that the expected behavior in movies and fiction?
On the edge are men that show they want to take action, but won’t risk their life to save a child. Why is that vilified as cowardice?
Why would the opposite behavior, say calmly watching a child bleed to death from an accident, be considered the mark of a villian that better be killed by the end of the story?
These aren’t just our American cultural norms, they are universal human norms; the stories are the same in all countries and all centuries.
You say: While I may have no interest in ruling over my neighbors,
Oh, bullshit. I won’t argue about corruption, we both believe that is occurring, but what your actual neighbors want, what middle class Americans want, is the safety net, laws and regulations you deride.
This claim of libertarians and Rand acolytes that they “be left alone” means one thing: They want to force everybody else to give up their safety net, laws and regulations, and never institute them again. That desire and demand (even if never met) is obviously an “interest” in ruling over others, to determine what they are and are not allowed to do.
We would all like to end corruption, but don’t pretend you don’t want to rule when you want to force people to give up the laws and protections the people have demanded and fought to acquire.
Before unions existed and before worker protections existed, workers struck and fought and died to put an end to being robbed, endangered, and lied to by business owners. Workplace safety law was not a gift, it was a grass roots movement and a demand by workers that they be treated as if their lives were valuable.
If we really wanted your selfish system, we could implement it in a heartbeat. We Don’t Want It.
Talk about ending Medicare, and a district that has been strongly conservative and electing Republicans for decades suddenly elects an unknown Democrat on that ONE ISSUE, despite massive funding on the Republican side and nothing but small grassroots donations on the Democratic side.
It isn’t just seniors, it is all of us: The people that pay for Medicare and do not get it still want Medicare to be there for seniors. And we know that no voluntary, for-profit solution exists that do this, and we don’t want some CEO earning millions off of providing medical care for the elderly, and we don’t want a system that earns more by cutting corners on care, or earns more by finding excuses to deny claims.
What we want is the tribal system, and majority rule, and a health care system that pays doctors a fair market-based wage for their time and experience, BUT makes nobody any profit: Not corporations, not individuals, not hospitals, NOBODY. What we want is a zero-profit system.
What you want to do is prohibit us from having that; don’t pretend you don’t want to rule when you want to make all the rules about what we can and cannot do.
“The government of MD turned the Ches. Bay Bridge into a toll bridge to help pay for repairs.”
Yeah. To repair the bridge. Not to make an ROI.
“They are building a private “Hot Lane” near where I live to help with rush hour traffic, it is funded by private investors [I think state and local government and maybe the feds are kicking in something] and will charge a toll.”
Yeah. Private investors looking to make a profit – an ROI – on that backs of government subsidies which are paid for by, duh, taxpayers. Subsidies that could be better applied to directly hiring contractors to improve existing infrastructure instead of propping up private investors.
You really are a simple, greedy creature who simply keeps proving my points about the ridiculous and ethically corrupt stance of both his “philosophy” and his economics.
Snide? I’d just clean the floor with you . . . again. Although I have found your past attempts most amusing.
Truth? You wouldn’t know it if it bit you on your objectivist venal ass.
You aren’t playing at being a selfish troll.
You’re the real deal on that account.
You know what? I avoid toll roads like the plague. It is an offensive concept to me, so I always take a work-around when I come to a section of road that has a toll. I take the secondary roads until I am past the toll road.
And oh yes, things are not handed out for free. Taxes are the fund raising arm of governments, and they manage the public money to take care of everyone.
Really, try and get a grip on the big picture. And see if you can buy some compassion for those less fortunate.
Otteray Scribe:
Maybe some places need public money for support of infrastructure. OK, but lets do private funding where we can. Anyway if the return isn’t good then no investor is going to want to fund it anyway. And people do need to get to work. So some public funding is necessary but there is a good deal that isn’t.
Why does it have to be all or none with you? Life isn’t black and white all the time. I don’t want a private military. But privately funding a toll road that is heavily traveled seems like a pretty good deal to me.
roco, you are coming across as a selfish troll. Perhaps you are a decent person who has just drunk what the Randians and teabaggers are selling. At any rate, your arguments are without logic or practicality and are dripping with narcissistic selfishness.
Short answer, the contractors hired to build stuff still have to employ workmen, the county or state has to hire employees and pay them. All of whom pay taxes back into the system. There is no nation in the history of civilization that had a system such as you suggest, unless it is failed states like Somalia. They do not have a workable government and the free enterprisers are free to make a buck any way they can. Such as by pillaging and looting. And piracy.
You understand nothing of the psychology of corporations.
Otteray Scribe:
“roco, your proposal is a perfect example of the moral bankruptcy of Ayn Rand and her brain dead followers. You prefer venal corporations take over the roads, bridges and pipelines of the country than to do it on a public basis. All on a theory as corrupt and devoid of logic or understanding of human nature as the theories of Karl Marx.”
I think that is unfair to say, I am talking about an alternative method of financing needed infrastructure projects. It would also give investors, middle class people like me, another opportunity to make money.
So I guess what it comes down to is you not wanting the middle class to profit from alternative investment opportunities. I have heard many on this site proclaim their love for the middle class, I guess it only goes just skin deep or maybe it is only when the middle class are union members.
Why do you want to prevent people from making money and living a better life? You made your pile so no one else should be able to? What is it? Why are you pushing our children and grand children over a cliff? Why do you and others want them to be burdened by debt and confiscatory taxation? Especially when the simple solution is right in front of you?
I just don’t understand liberals, they could get a private investor(s) to pay for a road and only people who use it would pay for it but they want everyone, even those who will never use it, to pay for it. They burden our children because it isn’t fair to make a person pay for something he uses? I guess you want everything handed to you for free.
roco, you appear to have no concept of scale. In our average-size county, we have about 1,200 miles of winding mountain roadways. They are not heavily traveled, but serve everyone who wants to go anywhere. There are 85 counties in our state, so multiply that by 85, more or less. We are not a heavily populated state, such as in the northeast. With all your powerful insights, how would you build and maintain roads in these hills?
Buddha is Laughing:
got news for you, it is being done now. State governments cannot afford the cost anymore so private investors are funding them. They are toll roads for say 20 years and then they revert to the state. So the ultimate recipient is the state.
How do governments go about taking land for roads now? Why do you think it would be any different especially in light of Kelo v. CT? Private industry has nothing on government as far as corruption goes.
You need to get out more.
We have plenty of roads now. The government of MD turned the Ches. Bay Bridge into a toll bridge to help pay for repairs. I see nothing wrong with that. I don’t live in MD so I only pay when I cross, seems fair to me. I use it, I should pay.
You have to set a price at which someone is willing to use it or else what good is it to anyone. They are building a private “Hot Lane” near where I live to help with rush hour traffic, it is funded by private investors [I think state and local government and maybe the feds are kicking in something] and will charge a toll. I hear it will be $25.00 peak time. I wouldn’t pay it but a doctor or someone needing to get somewhere fast? It might be worth it to them to avoid rush hour traffic. The mother of 6 still has the public road to get to work.
I don’t take drugs and apparently my vivid hallucinatory solution is being seen by more than just me. In fact I drive by my “hallucination” regularly, it is making pretty good progress too.
It isn’t even worth saying something snide to you. The truth is good enough.
Tony,
You ask “… Right, and you can say that all these things will happen and you can conclude the result with certainty because… Oh wait, you cannot, because you just make shit up and hope suckers believe you, because if anybody could predict the future as well as you claim you can…”
While I may have no interest in ruling over my neighbors, unfortunately a few of my neighbors have a strong desire to rule all aspects of my life… and even the lives of those around me. Many of the most motivated among this group are driven to run for political office.
In our system the drive to acquire and maintain power requires extensive promises to a majority of voters, accomplished largely through maintaining and expanding entitlements, deception, and creating a broad dependency on government. Power is also won through paternalistic claims of protection, as in the boundless and endless war on terror. And with claims of morality, as in the war on drugs or claims that government should protect some sanctity of marriage by limiting voluntary relationships.
The conclusion I have reached is that government’s reach and power will continue to expand, and often with brutal consequences to personal and economic freedoms. This is a common goal of both major parties.
In order to fund this continued expansion elected representatives in government will continuously seek the most politically popular and expedient route to take on issue after issue, just as surely as water flows downhill. Hard choices will be deferred. Santa Claus-like promises made. The path to power is well established and predictable, and many of the costs of these false promises will take the form of the most invisible taxes possible: inflation. These drivers all lead to the predictions I outlined.
Yes, those points are a prediction on the future. While I hope that I am deeply and fundamentally wrong on each and every one, natural laws cannot be suspended by the power of faith or government regulation. The United States and her empire is in very serious trouble, with a kind of groupthink denial of our situation as perhaps the leading challenge we face.
roco, your proposal is a perfect example of the moral bankruptcy of Ayn Rand and her brain dead followers. You prefer venal corporations take over the roads, bridges and pipelines of the country than to do it on a public basis. All on a theory as corrupt and devoid of logic or understanding of human nature as the theories of Karl Marx.