Neal Asbury opened his nationally syndicated “Neal Asbury’s Made in America” show on Radio America (now on 45 stations) by deriding the independent Congressional Budget Office’s findings that immigration reform is good for the economy.
“While it helps Wall Street and investors, the average American will find their wages shrinking, and along with it, employment opportunities. If 45 million more foreign workers enter the U.S. over the next five years, the 25 million Americans currently underemployed or unemployed will be out of luck,” predicted Neal.
Joining the show was first-time guest Neil Munro, White House Correspondent for the Daily Caller, who has written that: “The Senate’s pending immigration bill would boost investors’ and owners’ share of the economy for at least twenty years, and shrink some Americans’ wages and salaries for at least 10 years, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office.”
Munro suggested that Congress reacts to stimuli with one thought in mind: how it will play among voters. He predicted that Democrats will continue to push for more immigrants, especially Hispanics, which will give them the votes to stay in office forever, shutting out Republicans who will be perceived as anti-immigration.
“You have to ignore the polls that talk about public attitudes regarding immigration – they are funded by businesses and contain loaded questions that get them the numbers they want. Let’s face it, Americans are generally nice to foreigners and don’t want to appear to be mean, but they really don’t want any more immigrants in the U.S. and don’t believe that the Federal government is capable of fixing the border and stopping them,” said Munro.
Munro thinks that Republicans would like to stop the immigration bill but don’t want to appear to be anti-immigrant. He predicts that the Senate will get a bill through and while the House won’t adopt all of it, they may vote on a piece of it to look like they are trying, but it will go to a committee for further study and rewrite.
Neal and co-host Dr. Rich Roffman moved onto a discussion about President Obama’s reception by the German people during his recent trip to Berlin, which was poorly attended and the reception was lukewarm compared to the ovations he received when he visited as a candidate.
“I was really struck by his pronouncement to the German people that, “In all countries around the world, you’re seeing growing inequality, and so we have to find ways to make sure that ladders of opportunity exist for those at the bottom, and that profits and increased productivity does not just benefit those at the top.”
Neal wondered where the ladders were for the 25 million underemployed an unemployed Americans, or who is extending a ladder to the 14 percent of African Americans that are jobless.
“Obama is good with words, but words don’t mean anything anymore. Even the U.K. has found his remarks annoying, with the Daily Telegraph suggesting that Obama’s remarks were naïve, filled with “hopeless idealism,” and that he delivered nothing more than a laundry list of his pet causes,” remarked Dr. Roffman.
Joining the show as a first-time guest was Chris Edwards from the Cato Institute, who weighed in on the failed vote on the farm bill, noting that farm subsidies cost taxpayers $35 billion annually.
“The farm bill is sold on a fraudulent basis, voted in by politicians from the big farm states. Three fourths of the GOP voted for the farm bill, even though it was 47 percent higher than the bill that was initially turned down in 2008. Farm subsidies for dairy products and sugar, in particular, raise the prices that consumers pay for any food product with these ingredients It makes no sense to help out big agricultural conglomerates who benefit from this money, not the small farmer, for which the farm bill was originally intended in 1932,” said Edwards, who added that after New Zealand eliminated the farm subsidy program, farmers made more money and embraced the principle of free commerce.
He explained that the farm bill has two big sections: farm subsidies and food stamps. The bill was stopped by Democrats who objected to cutting the food stamp program by a paltry three percent.
The final guest on Made in America was Alex Nowrasteh, the immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, who contended that immigrants will actually help the economy instead of draining resources, even though in 20 years, there will be 46 million new immigrants (about 1 immigrant for every 7 Americans), 85 percent of whom will be low wage earners.
“You have to consider that today’s immigrants are putting more money into social security and Medicare than they are taking out. Immigrants are adding to the economy and the GDP beyond the wages they are making. But if social security doesn’t change the way it operates, eventually immigrants will take out more than they contributed,” predicted Nowrasteh.
Neal and Dr. Roffman continued their ongoing segment on government waste and cronyism, and highlighted how cronyism is impacting job creation.
Dr. Roffman began the discussion with the incredulous news that despite cut backs in government agencies due to sequestration, the IRS received $70 million in bonuses, which Dr. Roffman attributes to a “thank you” from the Obama administration for delaying the Tea Party’s access to funding.
“That, my friends, is cronyism at its best,” suggested Dr. Roffman.
“Then we have the USDA which decided that while poor people need government help to feed their families, they could carve out some money for subsidies to vineyards to help them make wine – most of which went to California, home of Nancy Pelosi and to the folks in Martha’s Vineyard,” said Dr. Roffman.
Each week Neal Asbury’s Made in America provides Neal’s insights into the week’s top news stories and their impact on the worlds of entrepreneurship, small business ownership and the overall economy. Neal’s analysis, together with co-host Dr. Richard Roffman, a veteran 30-year publisher with extensive domestic and international experience, takes a non-biased approach based on real life experience in business as an American manufacturer and exporter. Made in America airs nationally each Saturday from 7-8:00 PM on Radio America.
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