It shouldn't be that hard. . .

I'm not a politician.  Actually, preachers are.  There are lots of politics in the operation of a church.  But regarding entering civil politics, I've never been remotely interested.  Although I have shared before that in the dreaming and scheming of my mind I often think about being president and what I would do.  That's one of the ways I entertain myself during the long hours of commuting and yes, at three am when I can't sleep.

I think that if we could get the politics out of politicking, or at least diffuse some of the highly partisan bickering, there are common sense solutions to our mutual problems.

I believe that if you want to Make America Great Again then one of the most important things we can do is pass immigration reform.  A cornerstone of that reform should be a greatly expanded guest worker program, not a wall to keep people out.

The historical expansion of the American economy has always relied on an abundant supply of labor, and in order to achieve that we have welcomed immigrants.  From the factories in the industrial east to building the railroads in the west, to homesteading the farmland in the heartland, our nation has turned to immigrants for advancing our future.

As immigration quotas have restricted the supply of an economical labor force, i.e. immigrants, corporations have resorted to exporting jobs rather than importing the labor.  One of the effects of this is that at the same time our population is aging, we don't have enough people in the labor force paying into Social Security.  As the Baby Boomers move into retirement in mass numbers, this is going to show up  more and more, and significant adjustments will need to be made.  This is the thing.  If the factory is built north of the border, rather than in Mexico, then the labor force pays into SS.  That funds your and my retirement.  If it is built south of the border, no one is paying into Social Security.

We also have a shortage of qualified labor in many of our industries.  At the cabinet shop where I work they pretty much hire any person with experience that applies, because so few are available to meet our needs.  The trades are suffering.  The tendency in our upwardly mobile society is for people to seek higher paying jobs and leave the less lucrative trades behind.  It's hard to hire someone to sand and prep our work.  When we built Luther Park, we relied heavily on a Hispanic workforce to do the drywall.  They 'own' the commercial drywall industry.  No one else can do it as fast and as well.  And it takes a special type of hard working people to do this work.  Immigrants have done it.

If our economy is going to expand, we need an expanding workforce.  And we are not having enough babies to supply this need.  The only way to expand the workforce while the birth rate declines is to open the border to immigration.

My guest worker program would be industry based.  Specific employers or associations would demonstrate a need for immigrant labor and be issued a sufficient amount of work permits to meet that need.  It would be their responsibility to return those  immigrants to their home country if they are no longer employed.  Immigrants could earn the right to permanent status and eventual citizenship by successfully participating in a guest worker program for a number of years.  American citizens could be protected in the process.

The most common sense thing about this is that if we meet the needs for an immigrant labor force by providing a legal way of doing that -- illegal immigration evaporates.  Every person at our southern border wants to enter legally.  Illegal immigration is not the preference.  But illegal immigration will continue as long as there is an unmet need for laborers in this country.  Bottom line is that your all American blond hair blue eyed man or woman is not going to pick your apples or spend their life doing hot melt roofing.  I realize that's a racist statement.  But it is simply a fact that there are all sorts of jobs that Hispanic immigrants will do that white anglo saxon protestants won't. . .Simply a fact.

Apart from immigration America has never grown or expanded its economy.  It's our lifeline.  It shouldn't take a bipolar pastor in Idaho to tell the politicians in Washington, DC that this is so.  Just read your history books.  Well.  And learn.