Posted on 02/20/2004 11:22:20 AM PST by Spiff
Jim Behnke
Sierra Vista Herald/Review
Opinion
When I was a kid, we only had one parent working - my dad - and we always seemed to have enough. Not plenty, but enough. This is particularly amazing in view of the fact that my dad was a preacher - you know how they overpay those guys - and had five children. Today it seems both parents have to work full time, and even then lots of families barely scrape by.
The latest issue of Time magazine has a book review about this subject. The book was written by David Shipler and reviewed by Richard Lacayo. It is titled "The Working Poor." Since I have not had a chance to read the book, I will refer to what Time magazine has to say about it. The author states that "low-wage employees have been testing the American doctrine that hard work cures poverty." He states that a lot of people are living on the edge of household financial disaster and cannot escape their poverty because there are a lot of things that keep them there - a low minimum wage, convenience stores that advance them cash at 20 percent interest on a two-week loan, unscrupulous bosses who falsify time sheets so they work longer hours for the same pay, garment workers paid by the piece, exorbitant housing costs just to mention a few. These are the working poor, and "they spend everything and save nothing." Shipler had solutions such as a higher minimum wage, better job training and medical coverage. But he predicts nothing will be done as these folks carry no weight in the political process. It's not a bright outlook for the working poor.
But what Shipler did not mention and I will is that things are going to get worse, and it is all because of illegal immigration. The government admits there are 10 million illegals in this country and knowledgeable people put that figure at closer to 20 million. Now at a time of abundant cheap labor and a 6 percent unemployment rate on its way to 7.9 percent, President Bush and many members of Congress want to bring in more cheap labor, albeit legally and for a period of three years. But the result will be the same. An overabundance of labor will only drive down wages making the poor poorer.
In Los Angeles, there are documented cases of illegals willing to work for $2 an hour. In another case, one of our own people, a Mexican-American asked her boss for a pay raise and health insurance and was told to be quiet or he would hire an illegal to take her place. The hiring halls in Phoenix are jammed with illegals looking for work and unscrupulous employers hire them because they don't have to pay taxes or health insurance and there are plenty more to take their place if they don't like what's going on.
Bill O'Reilly of Fox News is correct when he predicts that the new legal immigration proposals will bring in another 50 million people, this at a time when hundreds of thousands of Americans are unemployed, and the jobs we do have are being outsourced to India, Mexico and a host of other cheap labor countries. Bringing in more cheap labor will only acerbate our problems and will be a recipe for disaster for these United States not too mention the impact 50 million people will have on our hospitals, schools and police services. (According to the Border Patrol, 7 percent who enter our country illegally now have prior criminal records).
And finally, remember, low wages mean little or no taxes paid with resultant low revenues for our state budgets. California has learned that the hard way and the whole country will learn it next.
In the meantime, the poor will get poorer and poorer.
JIM BEHNKE is a Sierra Vista resident who retired as an Army lieutenant colonel. He can be contacted by e-mail at wethepeople33@juno.com. His column runs every other Thursday.
I know it's not really the point of the article, but just an observation......
In my experience, churches typically see to it that the needs of the preacher and his family are met, even if they are not covered by his actual salary. This author might not have been aware of "charity" that the family was receiving from church members who were observant of their needs.
You got to eat your lint? My mom knitted ours into sweaters for us to wear.
We were a classic nuclear family until my brother underwent decay and we fissioned.
Jim Behnke is no bozo. Not even close.
I tried the subatomic lifestyle briefly, but a charmed existence is too strange, with all the ups and downs and not being able to tell if your at the top or the bottom.
No, the problem is US companies illegally hiring.
Four well-dressed men sitting together at a vacation resort. "Farewell to Thee" being played in the background on Hawaiian guitar.
Michael: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Graham: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah?
Terry: You're right there Obediah.
Eric: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?
Michael: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
Graham: A cup ' COLD tea.
Eric: Without milk or sugar.
Terry: OR tea!
Michael: In a filthy, cracked cup.
Eric: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
Graham: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
Terry: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
Michael: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness."
Eric: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.
Graham: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!
Terry: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!
Michael: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.
Eric: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US
. Graham: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!
Terry: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
Michael: Cardboard box?
Terry: Aye.
Michael: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
Graham: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!
Terry: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
Eric: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."
Michael: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.
ALL: Nope, nope.
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