There is a lobbying effort afoot by the country's major accounting firms and industry trade groups like the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants to bring more foreign accountants into the United States under the H-1B visa program.  The surreptitious way this is being done is to convince Congress to include accounting as part of the STEM career fields – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  Specifically, the accounting industry is trying to expand the STEM definition of mathematics to include accounting.

The STEM areas get preferential treatment in the approval of H-1B visas.  U.S. immigration authorities say that about 80% of H-1B visa are in the one of the STEM fields.

The classification of accounting as mathematics comes across as asinine to anyone whose common sense isn't stunted, let alone to those who have actually studied mathematics or science and engineering at the college level.  But this story gets even worse.

If you assume by the action of the accounting industry that the country was facing a shortage of accountants, you'd be wrong.  In fact, just the opposite is the case.  Data from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) show that consistently through recent years, students graduating with either a master's or bachelor's degree in accounting are twice as numerous as those hired by CPA firms.

With a straight face, accounting firms say they are not seeking lower-paid workers.  Oh, no – they are merely after the best possible employees for their company and clients.  To believe that, one has to assume that American colleges and universities do not know how to teach accounting. 

Those who study immigration and outsourcing, like Prof. Ronil Hira, an associate professor of political science at Howard University, disagree with the industry's position.

Mr. Hira says accounting firms are in fact using the H-1B program to bring in lower-paid accountants from abroad into the U.S.  The big accounting firms' approved application for H-1B visas show they are predominately for jobs in the lowest wage categories, especially entry-level wages, according to a compilation by Mr. Hira that he furnished to the Wall Street Journal.

"The companies see this as highly profitable.  The fact that it undercuts U.S. accountants isn't part of their calculations for decision-making," Mr. Hira said.

Yes, I am sure that undercutting American accountants does not figure in the decision-making of Price-WaterhouseCooper and the rest of the big accounting firms.  That's the problem.  Under the rubric of globalization, the headlong pursuit of increased corporate profits by any means is undermining the country. 

The American middle class is being eaten alive by unfair trade deals; aggressive outsourcing of jobs; and immigration, both legal and illegal.  And the truly sad part of this is that these activities, which are destructive to the nation as a whole, are all promoted by our own elite.

It couldn't be any clearer: globalization is the solvent dissolving the cohesion and culture of America.  Donald Trump was elected to reverse this trend.  He's even on record wanting to scale back the H-1B visa program for the so-called highly skilled "guest workers."

The president's work is cut out for him.  He has my support across the full spectrum of issues, irrespective of the hysterical naysaying and fake news propaganda put out by mainstream media.