Free Republic

Two GOP legislators are introducing legislation to let states annually import 500,000 foreign blue-collar workers and white-collar professionals to replace Americans who have fallen out of the workforce and into drug addiction. The American replacement bill is needed because companies can’t hire the employees they want amid the massive decline in the number of Americans who are seeking work, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson told an event hosted Wednesday by the CATO Institute. “Why can’t Wisconsin manufacturers, why can’t small businesses, find enough people to work?” Johnson asked during a speech in a Senate hearing room with supporters of the replacement...

In the age of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on the H-1B and strict enforcement of immigration law, tech conglomerates are lobbying the Congress and White House for amnesty and more foreign labor. These are the four tech companies, according to analysis by Quartz, pushing for no reforms to the H-1B visa and legal immigration system, as the current process of bringing more than 85,000 foreigners to the U.S. each year. Microsoft In the first quarter of 2017 during Trump’s presidency, Microsoft lobbied more for immigration and the H-1B visas than any other tech company. In Microsoft’s five out of eight...

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s new 2017 budget allows the Department of Homeland Security to import at least 20,000 extra foreign blue-collar workers for seasonal jobs in the Untied States, instead of requiring companies to recruit, train and pay marginalized Americans.

Two Bay Area tech executives are accused of filing false visa documents through a staffing agency in a scheme to illegally bring a pool of foreign tech workers into the United States. An indictment from a federal grand jury unsealed on Friday accuses Jayavel Murugan, Dynasoft Synergy’s chief executive officer, and a 40-year-old Santa Clara man, Syed Nawaz, of fraudulently submitting H-1B applications in an effort to illegally obtain visas, according to Brian Stretch, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California. The men are charged with 26 counts of visa fraud, conspiracy to commit visa fraud, use of false...

NEW YORK – As US President-elect Donald Trump fills his cabinet, what have we learned about the likely direction and impact of his administration’s economic policy? To be sure, enormous uncertainties remain. As in many other areas, Trump’s promises and statements on economic policy have been inconsistent. While he routinely accuses others of lying, many of his economic assertions and promises – indeed, his entire view of governance – seem worthy of Nazi Germany’s “big lie” propagandists. Tillerson with Putin The Trump Enigma John Andrews asks whether Carl Bildt, Joscha Fischer, Ana Palacio, and other Project Syndicate commentators are right...

Apparently, technology and trade generate noteworthy fear and strife in today's economy. Indeed, many view tech and trade as a kind of dangerous TNT set to blow up the U.S. economy. From kitchen tables to campaign trails to TV talking heads, chatter abounds about U.S. jobs being lost to technology and/or cheap labor in foreign nations. It appears to many that technology globalists are nefariously plotting to put us all out of work. Bummer. Has this happened before? Well, did you know that there were approximately 13.5 million agricultural workers in the U.S. in 1910, and that dropped to less...

“Free trade” means uncontrolled, unrestricted access to our economy for foreign-made goods, tariff- and duty-free. These goods are made at wages of $4 per hour or less. We cannot compete with these wages, so we are forced to outsource nearly all of our manufacturing, sell-out to foreign interests, or simply go bankrupt.

In the tweet heard round the world, Donald Trump threatened to slap a 35% tariff on companies that shift jobs overseas, then ship their goods back to the U.S. Since his election, the focus has been on the carrots Trump will offer to grow and protect America's manufacturing base: corporate tax cuts and possibly a side order of state tax incentives. That's the menu that will keep open a Carrier plant in Indiana... But now Trump is signaling a more combative approach... ...There will be a tax on our soon to be strong border of 35% for these companies," Trump...

In the 1895 “History of the Republican Party,” the authors declare, “the Republican Party … is the party of protection … that carries the banner of protection proudly.” Under protectionist policies from 1865 to 1900, U.S. debt was cut by two-thirds. Customs duties provided 58 percent of revenue. Save for President Cleveland’s 2 percent tax, which was declared unconstitutional, there was no income tax. Commodity prices fell 58 percent. Real wages, despite a doubling of the population, rose 53 percent. Growth in GDP averaged over 4 percent a year. Industrial production rose almost 5 percent a year.

International trade figures heavily in the presidential race. Presidential candidate Donald Trump said, "Hillary Clinton unleashed a trade war against the American worker when she supported one terrible trade deal after another - from NAFTA to China to South Korea." And adding, "A Trump Administration will end that war by getting a fair deal for the American people. The era of economic surrender will finally be over." He lamented, "Skilled craftsmen and tradespeople and factory workers have seen the jobs they love shipped thousands and thousands of miles away." Hillary Clinton has offered her own condemnations of trade and globalization....

Americans' view of the economy rebounded in early August from the worst level in several years to the best since June 2015, according to the IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index. The subgauge of the six-month economic outlook jumped to a still-dreary 44.7 from July's 36.7, which had matched the worst level since October 2013. The reading below the neutral 50 level still reflects a modestly pessimistic outlook. The improved sentiment comes amid news of higher wages... Separately, the National Federation of Independent Business reported on Tuesday that its Small Business Optimism Index rose slightly in July but remained on the soft...

Ronald Reagan was an advocate of free trade throughout his presidency. But just like today, many Americans in the 1980s opposed free trade and pushed for measures that would keep the nation out of the global economy.Fortunately, Reagan argued persuasively in support of trade, and his success led to rapid growth in the U.S. economy.He knew that protectionist policies might benefit some industries, but they hurt others.When the government gets involved in trade, special interests get a chance to game the system. These groups excel at making it hard to tell how their policies harm Americans.In his 1987 economic report,...

Donald Trump calls NAFTA the "worst trade deal in history." He said as president he'd negotiate for better terms with Mexico and Canada, and if they don't agree, he'd pull out altogether. Would he even have the power to scrap it on his own? Turns out presidents do have that power and don't need Congress. NAFTA's Article 2205, which Trump cited in his speech last week in Pittsburgh, is only 34 words and simply says that a party may withdraw from the agreement six months after it provides written notice. What would happen next is unclear since the U.S. has...

This year has seen an especially contentious – but also especially interesting – set of primary races for the Republican Party. The entry of Donald Trump into the race last year threw a huge monkey wrench into what was supposed to be Jeb Bush's yacht ride into the GOP nomination. Now Bush is out, and Trump finds himself fighting tooth and nail with Ted Cruz, the last two (and a half) men standing out of an original 17 contestants. But beyond simple issues of personality and politics, Trump's entry into the race (re)introduced an element of Americanism and populism into...

For years, supporters of free trade have been trying to reach a bipartisan consensus on the issue. They've finally succeeded. Free trade is now unpopular in both parties. Perhaps because I am a conservative, I can at least understand where most conservatives are coming from in their opposition to free trade. Overt displays of nationalism and patriotism (which are not the same thing, by the way) are not merely tolerated on the right, they're often celebrated. Conservative intellectuals openly extol American exceptionalism while liberal intellectuals tend to deride the notion. Virtually no Republican politician agonizes over wearing a U.S. flag...

The American people have concluded they’re getting “screwed” by trade deals, immigration policy, and other areas where their interests are not considered a priority by their own political and business leaders. He contended this backlash against the elites was the reason so many highly-touted candidates have flamed out of the GOP primary, which is on the verge of boiling down to a two-man race between the two leading anti-Establishment candidates, Donald Trump and Senator Sen. Ted Cruz Caddell said the critique of free trade from Trump – and to a lesser extent, his final remaining competitors – was the kind...

One of the cornerstones of Donald Trump's campaign has been the fact that millions of jobs have been lost to overseas industries because it is often too expensive to do business in America anymore. Many liberals have criticized Trump for these statements, but the Wall Street Journal recently reported that Ford's latest production move showed that Trump was exactly right. Ford planned to build a new assembly plant in Mexico in order to produce 500,000 more vehicles in Mexico than it currently does. Last year Ford's Mexican output was 433,000 vehicles, which translates to about 14 percent of its total...

I am about as huge a free trader as anyone you'll read or meet. Because it is in fact yet another less government issue. The less government gets in the way of peoples trading freely - the better it is for everyone. '"Trade Wars' actually aren't about trade — they are about government trade policy. "If peoples are trading freely, there isn't a 'War' there's commerce. The 'Wars' only happen when governments get involved, placing tariffs, regulations and subsidies in the way of the flow. "It becomes a regulatory arms race. A government imposes another subsidy or tax. So several...

When provisions were added to the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1986 that forbid the hiring (or referring for a fee) of an alien unauthorized to work in the United States, people thought it would be a game-changer. The prohibitions were accompanied by civil fines and even criminal penalties for repeat offenders.The "employer sanctions" laws, as they are usually described, also included prohibitions on "use of labor through contract", reflecting legislators' awareness that without them, employers would try to skirt the law forbidding hiring of illegal aliens by claiming they were contract employees, or by conveniently using subcontractors to do...

Tom Friedman, please take note. China’s lack of political wrangling is not an asset, it’s what will drag it down. Friedman’s and other liberals’ utopian dream of a benevolent dictator has never worked. It fails because unrestrained dictators, with the best of intentions, make mistakes – often grandiose mistakes. And when they are criticized and challenged, they fight to hold on to power. And then they become the Stalins, the Pol Pots and the Kim Jong Ils of the world. And China’s single party autocracy has made a grandiose mistake. It has embarked on a building spree that according to...