Perry, you sound like a misguided liberal. The U.S. already has a guest-worker program. This isn’t about not having enough guest workers. It’s about not having enough cheap labor. Business owners don’t want to pay a living wage for these jobs and that’s why many Americans don’t want to do these jobs. It has nothing to do with the type of work, rather, it’s all about getting cheap labor and pushing benefits like retirement (SS) and medical care for these cheap laborers onto the taxpayers.
Do you realize that as we let more impoverished people into the U.S., that wages continue to go down and more and more Americans go on welfare and unemployment? How does that help our country? Would you support a guest worker program that requires the employers to pay a wage rate based on the prevailing union wage and for the employers to provide health insurance? I could accept something like that, but that is not what this is about. It’s not about paying living wages and supporting these laborers, but is all about foisting the real expense of a cheap laborer onto American taxpayers.
As far as Social Security Totalization, America should do it the same way Mexico does it. Right now, America requires that a taxpayer pay into the system for only 10 years before that taxpayer vests. Poor Social Security payers in America also get much more back compared to what they put into the Social Security. Mexico on the other hand requires 24 years worth of payments for vesting and only provides a benefit equal to the amount someone paid in plus interest. For this to be fair to citizens in both countries, the U.S. should provide the same benefit to Mexicans that Mexico provides to Americans — 24 years vesting then only pay back what was put in + simple interest. Right now, this totalization program would provide a huge benefit to illegal aliens that America cannot afford:
