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PrintMay 17, 2011
Charles Schumer: Vote-Chasing Purveyor of Economic Fallacy
Last week, Democrat Senator Charles Schumer told attendees at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast and Conference that immigration reform would improve "wages and working conditions for all Americans," thereby solving our short-term economic problems. The Senator said,
All you need to know, and tell others, one of the best ways to improve economic opportunities for Americans [and] create jobs is to enact fair and practical immigration reform legislation.
Schumer's "logic" is curious. Apparently, legalizing twelve million illegals and adding a portion of those illegals to 13.7 million already unemployed people will "improve economic opportunities for Americans." Schumer didn't explain how Americans' opportunities would improve by competing for jobs with millions more given legal access to those jobs. The Senator didn't comment on where, during terrible economic times, the additional billions of dollars would come from to grow unemployment benefits owed to millions more given the legal right to apply for those benefits.
Equally as curious, Schumer didn't elaborate as to how adding unemployed people to the worker pool would "create jobs." But the Senator did say that immigration reform "would take away the supply of illegal workers." The man has an odd way of repackaging the fact that immigration reform would increase the supply of unemployed as well as employed legal workers.
Schumer also decried the existence of "unscrupulous employers who've exploited... [illegals] to increase profits while depressing wages for American workers." Progressive mantra relentlessly advances the deceit that "unscrupulous employers" pay people tiny salaries out of meanness. Schumer commits so many economic fallacies that it is hard to pick the silliest. But perhaps the daffiest blunder consists of getting fundamental economics bass-ackwards.
Senator Schumer's comments suggest that he is blind to the differences in socioeconomic conditions that flavor a society languishing under a bad economy versus one that is thriving in a good economy. Most Americans are open-minded, recognizing that millions of extra workers would be a boon to the country as a whole during gangbuster times. But "gangbuster" is not an adjective that a reasonable person would use to describe today's economy.
Sound economics requires employers to pay wages and charge prices necessary to encourage growth in markets and businesses. As a result of the growth, employers hire more people. When increasing numbers of people work, prosperity expands. This scenario produces a "good economy."
But when government interferes with business-subsidies, inconsistent tax breaks, overregulation, wage controls, price controls, or injecting millions into the worker pool-employers lose the power of the biggest economic innovation in the history of the world, free-market capitalism. Everyone's prosperity shrinks. The result is a "bad economy."
Senator Schumer is the textbook, economically-ignorant progressive. Even a history littered with casualties from generationally-dependent "victim" groups doesn't stop progressive politicians from selling ignorance as wisdom and dressing up that ignorance as minorities' path to salvation. To self-anointed visionaries, votes trump truth every time.
A writer, physicist, and former high tech executive, Chuck Rogér invites you to sign up to receive his "Clear Thinking" blog posts by email at http://www.chuckroger.com/. Contact Chuck at swampcactus@chuckroger.com
