Samuelson contra guest workers

Robert Samuelson’s “no guest workers/no amnesty” column in the Washington Post is a stunner, if only because common sense on immigration is so rare in mainstream organs of opinion. He states simple, direct truths that you almost never hear:

What we have now—and would with guest workers—is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico. By and large, this is a bad bargain for the United States. It stresses local schools, hospitals and housing; it feeds social tensions (witness the Minutemen). To be sure, some Americans get cheap housecleaning or landscaping services. But if more mowed their own lawns or did their own laundry, it wouldn’t be a tragedy.

Samuelson doesn’t punk out anywhere in the article. He doesn’t strike a single false liberal note.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 25, 2006 02:03 AM | Send