January 13, 2003

By Scott Ellis

Brevard County, Florida

sellis@spacey.net

To submit a Letter to the Editor: editor@usatoday.com

Reading recent Florida Today (FT) editorials -- http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/indexoped.htm  -- that link homebuilding to school populations, followed by the special edition on migrant workers, one cannot help but notice the glaring dichotomy of positions.

On one hand, legal residents, both native-born and immigrant, are prohibited from building homes because the schools are overcrowded.

On the other hand, millions of illegal immigrants -- whose very presence stresses the supply of housing and school capacity for the legal residents -- receive crocodile tears for their struggles.

No mention is made of how they prevent the legal residents from building homes, which in turn would increase the housing supply for all -- even those that are here to circumvent the law.

One cannot both advocate stifling economic and population growth, then wring hands over the barriers encountered by illegal immigrants.

It would be unimaginable for (FT) to advocate a growing, healthy, free enterprise economy where a rising demand for labor and increased capitalization would further increase working wages for all.

Many of those receiving substandard wages get such because they are here illegally and are working in areas with little or no mechanization. The solution to raising wages would be to get the tide of illegal immigration under control -- and compel all who come to this country to come here legally.

The false claim that "no one else will do the job" will quickly collapse as the inability to hire dirt-cheap hand labor creates more capitalization in those job markets, yielding better-paying jobs for those with the legal wherewithal to resist labor rate blackmailing.

Rather than an overwhelming supply of cheap illegal labor, there will be an abundant supply of workers desiring to better themselves legally.

For example, we use heavy equipment such as bulldozers and backhoes to clear property, place roads and utilities and destroy failing structures (when the government permits such activity).

If we could hire many men for literally pennies per day, armed with shovels and axes, we would not need the great capital expense of the backhoe. Since such labor is not available, even illegally, we pay good money to experienced individuals to build, maintain, and operate heavy equipment.

Agriculture jobs would become similar if the steady stream of illegal labor were to dry up. Mechanization would increase wages while productivity would be maintained with fewer -- but better trained and paid -- workers. Those freed from their current labor would be free to work in other sectors of the economy.

This has been the 250-year history of the Industrial Revolution.

When governments work to slow the economy -- also called limiting growth -- they cause harm to those in our society that are least able to shoulder the loss, the lesser skilled worker.

When they further halt the economic activities of those here legally because of those here illegally, they harm both populations, drying up jobs and freezing the housing market.

In a free economy and free society unchained by massive government intervention, ours is a nation capable of absorbing large numbers of legal immigrants who wish to become Americans.

In our current heavily regulated economy, many who would normally come here legally now must come illegally, receive lower wages than they would normally achieve, hinder the capitalization of certain industries, and create many economic restrictions and costs for those here legally.

If the editors of Florida Today truly desire to help the plight of the migrant worker they must needs advocate dramatic reductions in government regulation and the requirements for all immigrants to come here legally.

Since they advocate neither, their favored policies of more government, open illegal immigration and extreme green environmentalism doom current -- legal -- immigrants to substandard wages.