“Since 1932" [Hoover’s last year] “we have not had a president who has been more closely allied with business and more sympathetic to large and powerful corprporations.” says historian Alan Brinkley, specializing in the American Presidency.
Edsall of the “Washington Post” highlights Bush’s immigration proposal as enlarging the pool of workers to perform the “dirtiest and most dangerous tasks for low pay.” This initiative, not surprisingly is backed by what is called The Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, an alliance representing workplaces, such as nursery homes, meat packers and hotels.
This organization apparently is grounded on the myth, in the face of layoffs and outsourcing, that Americans do not want to work for sub-living wages as if this nation has not yet emerged from 19th Century exploitation when all the major cities were built on the backs of immigrants. Bush has bought into this hogwash inasmuch as he is against the minimum wage that has been woefully unfair since the ‘50s when the minimum wage was above the poverty line and was 50% of average wages. To equal that, the minimum wage today would have to be raised from the current $5.15 to $7.70.
Fund-raisers for Bush are called “Rangers” and “Pioneers” responsible for raising upwards of $200K and are reminiscent of the “entrepreneurial” hierarchy, established by home and health product sellers, whereby those suckered into selling from their homes: the more you sell and develop an inventory — earning a title and bonus — the less you do by hiring underlings to do the selling for you. These companies, however knew that most of the sales would be generated by the entrepreneurs unscrupulous ability to harass friends and family.
So, too, do these Bush fund-raisers go to the easy targets of their associates and kind — insurance and energy companies, corporate lawyers, the finance and communications institutions, let alone the immigration alliance. Any wonder these bedfellows have amassed $100M and still counting for Bush’s campaign in order to sustain the tax cuts beyond $1.7 trillion; to be subsidize for employer health care costs; to eliminate overtime pay for thousands of workers; to reduce the environmental obligations, such as allowing power plants to spew mercury pollutants to the year 2018, in lieu of the proposed 2007?
This obscenity brings to mind the famous quote of an alleged communist sympathizer in the Joe McCarthy days: “Senator,” [now Bush] “ have you no sense of decency?”