The images of children being separated from their asylum-seeking parents are too horrible to bear. In fact, there are so many things about the immigration debate that bring out our strongest feelings it seems almost impertinent to try to make a logical, less emotional argument, but that is part of the problem. The fact is, we need immigrants more than ever, and not just PhDs, but immigrants who can supplement our labor force in a variety of ways. It astonishes me that seemingly smart people don’t get this. GDP is essentially a factor of workforce and productivity so without workforce growth it is virtually impossible to achieve sustainable economic growth. Our population is growing at an anemic pace and more people are aging out of the workforce than aging into it. It’s basic math. Without a growing number of people to work and buy things, our economy will cease to grow — and all the tax cuts and deregulation in the world won’t change that. The good news is that the U.S. is a great place to live and work and people from all over the world still want to come here. This is a blessing and something most other countries simply do not have. An interesting story that most people don’t know is when Trump announced he was ending DACA, the State Department fielded calls from several industrialized nations who all expressed a similar message “if you don’t want them, we’ll take them”. Don’t get me wrong, illegal immigration is harmful on multiple levels, including how the immigrants themselves are frequently exploited, but those people come to this country for one reason – because there is work for them here. Otherwise they wouldn’t come, plain and simple. The solution to our workforce problem and our illegal immigration problem is the same, we need to substantially increase the number of legal immigrants into the country. It’s time the immigration debate moves from an emotional argument to an economic argument.
Terms like “great, genius,” and “world-class” are overused, perhaps because they mean something different to everyone. Greatness is subjective. Some might say you must be great just to be employed in the film business or to play professional sports, but I don’t think Will Smith or LeBron James think that way. The concept of being great also requires context. You could be a great high school athlete but only an average college player.
Regardless of political persuasion, most people think the rhetoric of politics has gotten out of control. If you believe that, as I do, there IS something you can do about it. You can ask yourself whether you are helping or hurting the situation. I like to say that there are two types of people in the world: people who add stress and people who relieve stress. I think similarly, some people are adding to the political spectacle in the country, and others are at least trying for something better.
Gary's Blog will return next week.