WSJ criticises senator's attempts to restrict H-1B visas

Economic Times, India ^ | 10-15-03

[Brian S]

PTI[ WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2003 10:14:38 PM ]

WASHINGTON: A Democratic Senator from California Dianne Feinstein's efforts to eliminate H-1B visas -- which allow bringing highly skilled technicians from abroad -- including India, has come under fire from a leading US daily.

The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial, noted that by attaching the provision to the legislation, she nearly scuttled the bilateral deals with Singapore and Chile.

Describing her "crusade" against H-1B visas as "mischievous," the paper says that as in all cases of protectionism, whether on goods or people, the result would be the opposite of what she intends.

Pointing out that Congress has already let the H-1B limit drop from 195,000 a year to 65,000, "the lowest level required by the World Trade Organisation Treaty," the paper says that the first thing to recognize is that as long as the US market for manufactured goods is relatively open, manufacturing will take place wherever it is most efficient and jobs will follow.

"If you want to restrict the outflow of jobs," says the paper, "you have to restrict the inflow of goods or the outflow of capital. No one serious would suggest that seceding from the world economy in this way would raise US living standards.

Another economic reality, says the paper, is that US companies that cannot import workers to fill certain jobs are likely to export those jobs to find the workers. At chipmaker Intel, H-1B visas make up 5 per cent of the work force and are essential to its global competitiveness.

Intel spokeswoman Jennifer Greeson recently told the San Francisco Chronicle that the company is "concerned about the circumstances that would further reduce the numbers" of available visas next year, and "we are thinking about what options to pursue." Intel, says the Journal, is not being unpatriotic, merely realistic about its own survival.

If the US bars Australians, say, from coming to the US, the paper points out, Australia may well bar Americans from living Down Under. Or worse, it might take access to Aussie service industries off the negotiating table.

US companies and workers could get shut out of fast-growing markets in financial services, architecture, engineering, consulting and construction--all industris that rely on individual expertise and in which the US has a real competitive advantage. Services now account for 65 per cent of the US economy and 28 per cent of the value of US exports.

Senator Feinstein's "people protectionism”, says the paper, would essentially repeal the Trade Promotion Authority that Congress approved for President Bush only last year. That power allows US negotiators to put every part of American trade law on the table in order to get the best possible deal from other countries.

If Feinstein is allowed to take immigration off the table, "trade deals will soon die a death of a thousand special-interest cuts."

[JustAnAmerican]

Even Democrats have a moment of clarity from time to time.

[Support Free Republic]

 

	Keep Our Republic Free Or mail checks to FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794 or you can use PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER and say THANKS to Jim Robinson! IT'S IN THE BREAKING NEWS SIDEBAR THANKS!

[newgeezer]

Just yesterday, a local conservative talk radio host presented some compelling evidence that the Founding Fathers and Republicans of old (e.g. Lincoln) were very much in favor of protectionism. One quote I recall pretty well had Lincoln saying that, where the price of some goods are so imbalanced as to favor transporting them from overseas rather than producing them at home, a tariff should be levied on the imported goods to equalize the cost to consumers.

The host's point was that this Republican mantra of "free trade" is a relatively new one for them.

[Lael]

Senator Feinstein's "people protectionism”, says the paper, would essentially repeal the Trade Promotion Authority that Congress approved for President Bush only last year. That power allows US negotiators to put every part of American trade law on the table in order to get the best possible deal from other countries.

If Feinstein is allowed to take immigration off the table, "trade deals will soon die a death of a thousand special-interest cuts."

She is FINALLY getting it right!

Thanks to the Internet, she is FINALLY feeling the heat!!

Not many votes in India!!

[Jim Cane]

Pointing out that Congress has already let the H-1B limit drop from 195,000 a year to 65,000, "the lowest level required by the World Trade Organisation Treaty,"

More Doom and Gloom from the WSJ and the WTO flunkies.

Karl Rove is deeply saddened.

[skeeter]

The sky is falling, WSJ.

[1rudeboy]

Even protectionists show their true colors time to time.

[Plutarch]

The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed is a huge conservative asset overall.

On matters of immigration, however, it takes a phony libertarian stance, extolling the benefits of immigration.

It represents the Corporate cheap labor lobby, the enemy within the Republican Party.

In Antebellum days, it would have represented the interests of planters, and been Pro-Slavery. Wouldn't want disruption to the Cotton economy.

[You Dirty Rats]

I'd like to see a reference that shows Lincoln actually made that quote.

Whether he did or he didn't, that proposal is the absolutely most ignorant thing I have ever seen on this forum (and that's saying something). If you levy a tariff on imported groups to raise the cost to be equal to domestically produced products, you have destroyed all international trade! Congratulations!

Now explain to me how ending all international trade is good for us.

Even Pat Buchanan isn't that much of an isolationist. Why anyone would want to adopt the trade policies of pre-1854 Japan is beyond me.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

We don't spend billions just to defend against radical Islam. There's the little matter of the chi-coms and IMO Russia. Both Russia and China urge a not too reluctant India to join them in an alliance against the world's only super power, us. Right now we are all allies against radical Islam -- I have doubts about China, though. They did team with the Taliban to quiet their own Muslim problems.

Some expect that the war to defend against radical Islam could last as long as the Cold War. Overlaping and or following that could well be a war to defend against the chi-coms. Who will Russia favor? Who will the pro-Soviet leader of the Cold War "non-aligned" nations, India, favor?

Could we at least defer wide open borders and unrestricted "free trade" with very real opponents until they no longer have powerful military services and we no longer have a need for a Department of Defense while still keeping our sovereignty? Trade but verify, so to speak.

[Cicero]

There is a grain of truth in the WSJ's position. We need to raise tarriff barriers as well as restrict H-1B visas, or we'll see the jobs continue to go offshore.

This is a self-made problem, due to greed of the politicians and their big donors.

[Dialup Llama]

>If the US bars Australians, say, from coming to the US, the paper points out, Australia may well bar Americans from living Down Under. Or worse, it might take access to Aussie service industries off the negotiating table.

Bad example WSJ, you dopes. The correct country to name is India. How many Americans work in India? None. India has raised a 100% barrier against anyone who might wish to go there to work from the US.

[Dialup Llama]

The job loss programs are not free trade or trade of any kind. It is pure wage arbitrage. It does not benefit US consumers who pay the same for Nike shoes no matter how cheaply the slave workers can crank them out. It does not benefit US wage earners. There is no reciprocal trade to replace the jobs lost. It is a net loss for US workers.

Intel essentially wants the cash register placed in the US (access to US markets), but the person operating the cash register to earn India wages.

[Jim Cane]

Intel essentially wants the cash register placed in the US (access to US markets), but the person operating the cash register to earn India wages.

Forget check out clerks. They need to learn a new skill like maintaining self-scan autoregisters.

[Jack Black]

what prevents shoplifting?

[Jim Cane]

what prevents shoplifting?

The ten Partiot Act Safe Grocery Enforcers stading by the door that were hired by the federal government to ensure that private enterprise saves a few bucks on it's payroll.

[newgeezer]

I'd like to see a reference that shows Lincoln actually made that quote.

If you're truly interested, you can open or download this MP3 audio file of Tuesday's show and start listening at the 1:59:00 mark. Jan Mickelson quotes Washington and Lincoln.

"A free people ... should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for military supplies." -- Washington

(I can't argue with that, and it seems to be at the heart of the steel tariff Bush signed into law.)

I couldn't find a link to the following quote:

"Should duties be adjusted to favor home production in the home market? I have long thought it would be to our advantage to produce any necessary article at home which can be made of as good quality and with as little labor at home as abroad, at least by the difference from the carrying [i.e. transporting] from abroad. In such case, the carrying is demonstrably a dead loss of labor. For instance, labor being a true standard of value, is it not plain that, if equal labor get a bar of railroad iron out of a mine in England, and another out of a mine in Pennsylvania, each can be laid down in a tract at home cheaper than they could exchange countries, or at least by the carriage? If there be a present cause why one can be both made and carried cheaper in money price than other can be made without carrying, that cause is an unnatural and injurious one and ought gradually if not rapidly [be] removed." -- Lincoln, 1861

(Obviously, labor was everything in labor-intensive 1861. And, where was the third world?)

"The Republican party would effect all needed reduction of the National revenue by repealing the taxes upon tobacco, which are an annoyance and burden to agriculture, and the tax upon spirits used in the arts, and for mechanical purposes, and by such revision of the tariff laws as will tend to check imports of such articles as are produced by our people, the production of which gives employment to our labor, and releases from import duties those articles of foreign production (except luxuries), the like of which cannot be produced at home. If there shall remain a larger revenue than is requisite for the wants of the government we favor the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any part of our protective system at the joint behests of the whiskey trusts and the agents of foreign manufacturers." -- Republican Party Platform of 1888

(Gotta like how they wanted to reduce internal taxes rather than grow government!)

Certainly, I'd have to agree with the point that we should be free of foreign dependence -- be they friend or foe -- where our national security is at stake. So, how about oil? Drill ANWR. ;)

[biblewonk]

Isn't there spose to be sompin in there about the right to free trade shall not be infringed. "What part of shall not be....yadda yadda yadda".

[Cronos]

Some expect that the war to defend against radical Islam could last as long as the Cold War How blinkered a view is that??? The war against radical I has been going on for 1400 years, that's A BIT LONGER THAN THE 40 odd years against the red menace, don't you think???????