Why is our Election Process so Ridiculous and Long?

I'm a Democrat, and I have been since JFK. I did vote one time for a Republican President, to my chagrin, because I thought he might be a better manager of our country at the time (I was young and less wise then). I also live in Washington State, which is relevant to my comment about voting for a manager-Republican once upon a long-time ago, as Washington State has one of the stupid dual caucus-primary presidential nomination systems--a monument to management inefficiency and waste.

I want to bring up two topics in this post:

First, the unbelievably screwed-up Presidential Primary system (dys-system) in this country--which currently affects my party the most, and threatens what should be an almost certain Democratic win in the Presidential election. (It might also affect the Republicans in the future, who are now rubbing their hands in glee, as it puts an over-the-hill nominee back in serious contention for the Presidency).

Second, the negative consequences of the continued internecine battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, which is also partly a consequence of the first point. (The longer this Dem party competition drags on, the more negative it becomes--and the more ammunition for McCain/McBush, as well as a drain on Democratic resources and the more it robs the eventual Democratic candidate of his or her emotional and physical resources).

With regard to the first topic: it is pure insanity to have a presidential nomination and election contest which drags on for so long. Not only do people lose interest, but the costs in money and diversion from important national interests is immense. People who do wish to be involved are robbed of their votes through dual caucus and primary votes in some states, like Texas and Washington State.

In Washington State, only the caucuses counted toward nomination--a small percentage of the eligible voters--while the primary did not. This is an example of pure stupidity. I still do not fully understand the Texas "two-step", but like Washington's it's stupid to infinity.

There has been a lot written about Michigan and Florida and their aborted primaries, so I won't do much more than mention them as further evidence for stupidity.

I believe most Americans would like an more efficient, shorter Primary selection process, as well as a shorter Presidential campaign--I know I do. Both would be far less costly as well (How many potholes could have been fixed with the excess wasted money, not to mention health care needs?). Many other democratic countries, including the much maligned French, seem able to elect their leaders in a much shorter, less costly and more efficient election process.

So, what's the solution to overly long, costly and undemocratic state primaries?

It's so simple that, like the V8 ads, anyone who can't see it deserves a smack on the head. It's just this: Drop the inane caucuses, they limit participation percentages in the nominating process and are most obviously undemocratic. Shorten the nominating process by having five regional primaries (this has been suggested many times by others) and have the involved states pool the costs or have them paid for by the Feds. Which region goes first? Draw numbers 1-5 from a hat, and do this every 4 years so there's no long term advantage to any region. (It's OK if you have fewer, or a few more, regional primaries--any number between 3 and 8 is OK by me).

Finally, limit the time for campaigning for the Presidency, after the party conventions to 3 to 4 months, maximum. Most of us will have made up our minds by then anyway. This is a completely multipartisan solution to the absurd costs and useless waste of time in our elections. Why haven't we and why can't we get something like this done? It would be a boon to all of us.

And, while we're at it, let's solve the voting machine paper trail problem, too. This should be done well before the next presidential election. It should not be that hard. Our inability to accomplish such common-sense changes is one more piece of evidence, to me, of how the United States is declining.

Immigration Benefits and Costs--Candidates Avoid Them

Illegal Immigration Benefits and Costs: The Issue Candidates Avoid

Kent L. Cootes, PhD

January 11, 2008

I have read a lot of garbage about illegal immigration, especially about its costs and not a great deal about its benefits, and I have seen little that is useful and valid, or not just one-sided.

Exceptions are that a lot of drugs and drug-related crime is crossing both borders into the USA, especially the southern border, and that there is a potential for terrorists to cross over either border (with hard evidence of past incursions). Those are about the only objective facts that exist.

Almost everything else is partisan or anecdotal or hyped by some in the media, again with an exception. There is no question that the impacts—both negative and positive--of illegal immigration are spread unevenly across different localities and regions and segments of the economy.

Every study I have seen to date has serious flaws in methodology or is biased according to the authors’ preconceived positions on the issue.

For example: you can read a Heritage Foundation study at:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/sr14.cfm

If you don’t already know it, the Heritage Foundation is a conservative partisan organization. It does NOT consider the full economic benefits derived from the work performed by illegal immigrants. All it examines and illuminates are tax revenues from their assumed numbers of low-skilled immigrants both legal and illegal, along with selected social costs of government services provided. Their estimate is “Overall, low-skill immigrant households impose a net cost of $89 billion per year on U.S. taxpayers”. Note here that they do not distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants, just low-skilled immigrants. However, nowhere in their study is there any estimate of the overall value of the annual benefits received by you and I of the labor and services these immigrants provide because they provide their work and services at at a rate that is 60 % or less than that of American workers.

Should this immigration, legal and illegal, be halted there would be substantial upwards inflationary costs to the economy, meaning costs to you and I. At that point, we could expect the labor costs of many items and services to increase substantially, maybe double, from those we now enjoy. The net result would likely far outweigh the $89 billion per year costs estimated by the Heritage Foundation in their incomplete study. Such increases would also add to an increased pressure to import lower-priced foreign goods, driving some domestic companies out of business, and worsening the USA balance of payments problems.

A problem with any study, either already conducted or proposed, is that no one knows how many illegal immigrants are currently here in the USA (Is it 10 million? Is it 18 million?). Some reasonably accurate estimates of the total number, the age breakdown, marital status and citizenship status of children is crucial to any determination of costs and benefits. The fact that we have no national identity card nor census data for illegals in the USA makes these estimates difficult and costly to obtain, probably much more difficult and costly.

Again, we don’t know how many of these illegals have children born here, nor how many of these children there are; and are, therefore, American citizens entitled to social benefits. No matter how hard-line you may be about illegal immigration, no one can strip away these citizenships retroactively. So then, one question is what do you propose to do about these children’s immediate family if they are illegal immigrants? It is also illegal to deport an American citizen child.

Everything I have read focuses on either the negative aspects of this immigration and its costs or on some of the unquantified benefits received by them, with very few that really attempt to balance, from either a cost-benefit or values perspective, or even list and quantify most of the important factors. The studies and blogs and media presentations I have seen are largely partisan, and have major methodological faults, or do not have sufficient accuracy. Throw in a little bigotry, and ignorance on both sides and all that is accomplished is shouting back and forth, along with seriously flawed studies.

So, my purpose here is to lay out the considerations I can identify: Those I believe must be taken into account in arriving at a sane solution to this issue; and to ask you to throw in your two cents along with mine, particularly where you think I may have missed something important. I do not believe we can resolve this problem without considering ALL of the below, and the aforementioned problem of the illegals’ American children—many of whom are, and may become, a serious burden on our social systems (as well as potentially contribute a great deal to our country).

The important factors and considerations that must be published and widely understood before we can arrive at a national consensus and policy include the following:

(Several of these are raised above, including the determination of reasonably accurate numbers in each category outlined above. These must also include good figures on incoming flow rates across both borders of illegals and a reasonable estimate of the percentage of criminals in the mix and added drug crime enforcement costs both primary and secondary, not just partisan hype)

1. How much will it truly cost to build effective fences and where should they be built, if they should be built at all, along with the cost of acquiring private lands on/near the proposed fencing? Related questions involve the quantitative effectiveness of such fences, and what alternative measures could be taken other than fences, focusing on their estimated comparative effectiveness and costs. Pros and cons and costs associated with our relationships with both our southern and northern neighbors must be included in these calculations, too. Is the cost worth it? Might effective fences improve or lower the ability for legitimate people to cross borders?

(For example: it is already a major pain to legally cross the border from Washington State into Canada with lots of delays, and a concurrent loss of tourist and, possibly, commercial income on both sides of the border because of these delays. How much loss occurs has probably already been calculated, but does that take into account the lowered value of the American dollar, now and future? I know I don’t go to Canada as often as I used to, and I’m sure more Canadians would travel to the USA if border crossing were not such an impediment). Do such fences cause a false sense of security, or real improvements in security? Can these be quantified--realistically?

2. A secure national identity card, like those of many, if not most, other developed countries. Right now, we often have to use several forms of ID in many transactions to establish who we are. Some of these are easily counterfeited, as those who have suffered identity theft can testify. How can people be educated to understand that little or nothing would likely be lost with a national ID card, and much is to be gained from a national security standpoint?

The REAL ID system that Homeland Security is promoting is being resisted by the states because of cost. It is essentially a national driver’s license and now it will not have to be fully implemented before 2017, because of state reluctance to implement and some citizens’ resistance. The cost should be less than that of a passport, and it should take the place of any driver’s license nationally—in my view. (See the next point re: employer penalties).

Unless this plan is implemented, we will have to use a passport—a defacto national ID card with several important flaws for internal ID purposes—to travel internally and to Canada. What is the real cost for such a card if it supplanted state driver’s licenses, as it should? How much should each of us have to pay for to obtain one?

3. Penalties for companies that hire illegals knowingly. This would be vastly simplified if we had secure national ID, guest worker and green cards. There is no reason why companies should not be able to hire guest workers and temporary workers, if a good faith effort has been made to hire Americans first. Companies should have to prove that effort, and it must be a reasonable one, without causing undue time delays and company costs, especially for small firms.
4. Removal of automatic citizenship for children of illegals born in the USA. Why we allow this now is a mystery to me. It may have made sense sometime in the past, but why now? Also, why do we allow Cubans and others to gain USA residence if they make it to dry land? Political asylum is one thing, but economic opportunity is another. How to make a clear determination of either?
5. A reasonable path to citizenship for those illegals already here who are gainfully employed and law-abiding, with penalties to offset some of the free benefits received by them--while taking into account the full value of the services provided by them. Why is this considered amnesty by some? This has already been proposed, so I’ll not belabor this point, but numbers involved and their true costs, compared to the true and complete costs of rounding up and deporting these illegals, including what to do with the American children and an estimation of the complete costs for these children assuming deportation of parents. This has to include incarceration, psychiatric and other institutional costs as children left behind will likely have higher crime rates than even second-generation immigrants from these and other countries generate now.
6. A true determination of the added or marginal costs of the crime and increase in violent crime caused by our current policy, and its likely future costs if no rational policy is implemented. (This is part of point 1. above, but mentioned explicitly here because of its importance)
7. Inflationary effects and costs of limiting immigration in times of full or almost full employment, especially on necessities such as food and housing; and services (Republicans, listen up: inflation is a tax on all of us)

(Another example: My mother’s caregivers in her corporate-owned assisted living facility are mostly from the Philippines, Africa, Eastern Europe and SE Asia—legal, I assume, but whose English language skills are limited, making it very hard for Mother to understand and communicate, increasing her sense of isolation. I think this is commonly the case all across America. Without these immigrants and guest workers, the already exorbitant costs of such assistance would likely be much higher that the $4000/month that it already costs us).

It must be recognized that many of us have benefited individually, and so have our businesses—small and large--by having this low-cost labor readily available. On the other hand, when economic times are tough, excess labor will cause hardships for Americans seeking employment at the lower end of the economic ladder.

This is my starting list of considerations, but I also believe that any decent immigration policy must allow places for the economically deprived, who have potential, to be given a fair chance at immigration, not just the educated and technically skilled. There is a long history in the United States of giving the poor and deprived a chance here, as we all know. This is known as the land of opportunity for a reason. We obviously have a need for people to perform important services at the low end of the economic scale. But, right now we have a flood of poorly paid and illegal immigrants performing these services without any chance of moving up the opportunity ladder—and our dysfunctional educational, medical and other systems are not equipped to provide the skills that are needed, even if we didn’t treat these people so poorly, regardless of their legal status. The fact is we use and abuse many of these people, whether intentionally or not. They have no real legal rights in this underground economy—a situation many of their employers would like to see continue, because of the much lower labor costs and ease of replacement.

The only approach I have seen so far, that really attempts to address many of these issues in a sane way has been the recent failed Bush attempt, shot down by overemotional and simplistic charges of “Amnesty” by people like Lou Dobbs, and by those who are negatively affected in the US by drug crime and loss of jobs, especially in the US Southwest and California. Lou Dobbs claims to be a champion of the middle class yet he ignores the many economic benefits provided by the underground illegal immigrants to the middle class—including the lower cost of homes constructed by these illegals and the lower cost of food and other services provided by them. Dobbs is just another hypester, in my view, taking advantage of this issue for his own benefit, while muddying the water.

The lack of a rational approach to this issue and the delay in achieving a comprehensive policy, and implementing it, only increases the problems for those experiencing the negative effects, and increases the probability that more of us will experience those costs, with the added probability of additional terrorism that will lead to a stupid overreaction—an overreaction that is becoming more and more likely unless we deal with this issue intelligently and with informed haste.

Why have we not heard much so far by any of the candidates, Republican or Democrat, on this very important issue? Perhaps it is time that you weigh in, in a balanced way.

All the issues and considerations I have raised above must be included in a rational discussion, but they must be quantified and disseminated so that such a discussion is possible. Possibly several national study/ies that fully consider/s and widely publicizes the results must be conducted, or if they exist, they must receive wide distribution and summarization, perhaps at town hall meetings or other public venues and in the media.

It took years of studies to convince most adults that smoking was dangerous to one’s health, accompanied by TV ads, warnings on cigarette packages, testimony in Congress, documentaries and even movies. And today, still, a lot of teens and young adults, as well as a minority of older adults don’t get it. Some still deny that second-hand smoke is dangerous, and an incursion on their Constitutional rights. But most thinking adults did get the message and quit. Perhaps a similarly long campaign will be necessary to resolve the immigration issue where the numbers are harder to come by, but should a nuclear weapon be smuggled in by a terrorist, the results may be similarly deadly, and almost instantaneous—even if only in one locality (although the other incredibly negative effects—economic and otherwise—will be national).

On the other hand, if we totally stop the inflows and do not offset the loss of the substantial benefits we all now receive from illegal immigrant labor, the costs to us--and to our national and state economies, will be inflationary; will be large; and will be long-lasting. The present situation is denigrating to our values and to us individually; it dehumanizes the illegals; and is unfair to all involved. The present situation cannot be allowed to continue.

I have done a few back of the envelope crude estimations. I estimate that loss of illegal immigrant labor would create inflationary labor costs of somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 billion to around $300 billion dollars per year (depending on the number of illegals in the US and assumptions regarding rates of pay and hours worked, etc). This is a hidden tax everyone would have to pay, should this labor completely disappear (in a full-employment economy).

In addition, these immigrants buy US goods and services for personal support (rent, food, clothing, TV sets, etc.) to the tune of $50 billion to perhaps as much as $200 billion or more, depending on the numbers of illegal immigrants that are really here—and they help support Latin America economies with the dollars they send south to families there. Mexico, in particular, gains billions of dollars in this way each year—an implicit form of foreign aid.

Earlier, I referred to a Heritage Institute study that placed the annual costs of “low-skilled” immigrant labor at $89 billion USD. Note that this study did not explicitly sort out illegals within this definition. But, if we assume that’s what they meant, then this cost is far lower than the benefits we individually, and our businesses, receive annually—even using my crude estimates. I’m not including Social Security and sales taxes paid by illegals, as some of this was included in the Heritage study. But, even if one uses my low-end estimates, the benefits we receive are roughly twice the Heritage costs, and perhaps five times the costs or more. Keep in mind that my estimates are very crude and I don’t think the Heritage costs are the last word.

But, as I said above, I will give no study any credence unless all the economic factors are explicitly identified, properly quantified where possible, and presented publicly and clearly in a way that makes a rational policy possible. If these studies exist, are non-partisan, and methodologically valid, where are they? Why are our candidates largely avoiding this important issue?