Immigration Reform Should Include Guest Worker Program And Taxes On Work Visas, Says Economist

By Annie Berman - Talk Radio News Service

At a Capitol Hill briefing held by the Cato Institute Friday, economic experts recommended factors that should be included in immigration reform including a guest worker program, taxes on work visas, and tighter internal enforcement and border security.

Peter Dixon, an economist from Australia who holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, argued that illegal immigrants who hold low skill, poorly paid occupations are more likely to be unreliable workers than an employee who is a citizen of the U.S.

“The main reason for their productivity being low is their wages. Economic theory suggests that people will be employed up to the point where their wage is equal to their productivity,” Dixon said. “If wages were higher than their productivity, well then they will get fired. If wages are lower than their productivity, then you want more of them...They systematically earn lower wages than legal residents.”

Dixon explained that if the U.S. imposed tighter border security and tighter internal enforcement, it would cost twice as much for an illegal immigrant to cross the border. Therefore, a reduction in the labor force of low skilled, low wage workers would cause vacancies to open up at the top of the job market.

“Border crossing is a dangerous thing to do. You’ve got to give money to smugglers, it might not be successful, you might be sent back home...We’ve built the fence higher in a way that’s equivalent to potential illegals thinking in terms of it costing them an extra $5000 [for example] for a crossing,” Dixon said.

To counteract a reduction in the number of jobs available to citizens, Dixon suggested a guest worker and legalization program wherein employers may obtain visas that are taxed. The taxes from the visas would go to the government and an incentive for employers to higher immigrants that want to work in the U.S. would be created. With a guest worker program, there is the possibility that each guest worker would bring more productivity with them, the economist added.

Dixon explained that the U.S. standard of living will go up because because there would be more productivity, but without any drain on public expenditures due to only a small rise in population. Dixon also made clear that the guest worker program would not be a “path to citizenship”. Immigrants who choose to participate in the guest worker program would simply be guests, not automatic citizens, Dixon said.

“It has to be made completely clear that this is not a path to citizenship. This is a way in which the U.S. gets a job done. It’s like trade. You are importing labor to do a particular job and then go away again. So it’s not meant to be a path to citizenship.”

Military Leaders Aim To Lower Post-Deployment Psychological Issues

Annie Berman - Talk Radio News Service

“The hardest thing about deployment is coming home,” said Rep. Patrick J. Murphy (D-Penn.), an Iraq War Veteran who served in Iraq in 2003, at a hearing Wednesday before the House Subcommittee on Military Personnel.

In an effort to ease the process of coming home from deployment, the military has developed a number of programs aimed at combatting military suicides. The Marine Corps in particular has developed a “family readiness” program that is intended to help soldiers and their families cope with all of the stages of serving in the military, from basic training to deployment, to coming home.

As the number of military suicides continues to rise, leaders in the armed forces have grown frustrated with programs that have been put in place to lower this figure.

“The reality of it is, the target for [these programs] needs to be the assimilation of those who have served back into the general population dealing with the day to day whether it’s families, their kids, their education, their bills, and the relationship stressors associated with it,” said Admiral Patrick M. Walsh, Vice Chief of Naval Operations at the U.S. Navy.

General Peter W. Chiarelli, Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, explained that it’s not necessarily a matter of whether or not the programs are working, but rather a matter of finding ways to best match a specific program with an individual service member's needs.

The U.S. Army has commissioned the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct a study entitled: “Collaborative Study of Suicidality and Mental Health in the U.S. Army," a study that Chiarelli believes will help him and his colleagues understand what causes soldiers to commit suicide.

“[This is] the largest study of behavioral health ever undertaken by the Army.....[it] will examine behavioral health, psychological resilience, suicide risk, suicide-related behaviors, and suicide deaths across the active and reserve components over all phases of a soldiers career,” he said.

Another initiative to helping soldiers cope with the stresses of deployment and coming home is a web based program that would provide online counseling via video, email, live chat, or instant messaging.

“[There is] a stigma of seeking mental health help. We’re trying to do everything possible to try and get rid of that stigma...It’s been done in Australia. They’ve had tremendous success. The people have been more willing to open up online and that gets the geographically separated people who don’t have the cocoon of the military post,” said Chiarelli.

High Health Costs Forcing Americans To Go Bankrupt, Cut Back On Care

By Annie Berman - Talk Radio News Service

The current health care system is not bankrupting America; Rather, outrageously high medical bills, mounds of credit card debt and expensive mortgages are what cause Americans to file for bankruptcy, experts said Tuesday at a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law.

Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of one-time Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards, shared statistics with the committee regarding vast medical costs forcing Americans into declaring bankruptcy. Edwards explained that such costs force households into cutting back on what they spend on health care.

“According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, concerns about affording needed medical care led insured individuals to cut back on care due to cost. Responses included postponing care (34%), skipping a recommended medical visit or treatment (30%), not filling prescriptions (27%), and skipping doses or cutting pills (21%),” said Edwards.

University of Michigan Law Professor and bankruptcy expert John A. E. Pottow offered his definition of medical bankruptcy to the committee.

“It could mean someone whose medical debts exceed…a certain percentage of their income. Or it could mean someone who lost income or a job, or even had to mortgage his or her home, due to medical bills,” said Pottow.

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a physician and Harvard University medical professor, argued that only a single-payer system can make health care coverage available and affordable to all Americans, and would “save hundreds of billions we now waste on insurance overhead and bureaucracy”. Woolhandler also claimed that private insurance is fundamentally defective and the tremendous amount of over-treatment by doctors causes medical bills to go way up.

However, the committee’s ranking Republican member, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), took issue with Woolhandler’s sentiments.

“Here’s my big concern, and that is that somehow the answer to medical bankruptcy is nationalized healthcare…If a [nationalized healthcare system] saves hundreds of billions of dollars, it would be a first in history for government to do something of this complexity and actually save money,” said Franks.

“If indeed private insurance is fundamentally defective…with all the crises that people face with healthcare, if you put it in government hands, even to a partial extent, you will diminish the dignity of the patient and the pressure will be on giving less healthcare…I am convinced that healthcare will become more expensive...Instead of having financial bankruptcy, we will have health bankruptcy,” said Franks.

Health Reform Must Not Discriminate Against Those With Pre-Existing Conditions Say House Dems

By Annie Berman - Talk Radio News Service

America needs health care reform that doesn't discriminate against medical patients with pre-existing conditions, said House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and others during a press conference on Thursday.

“Our health care system has also stood against equality. Insurers are regularly permitted to discriminate against Americans with pre-existing conditions. As a result, millions of Americans have found it essentially impossible to secure health coverage,” said Hoyer.

Also at the press conference were Reps. Ed Perlmutter (D-Col.) and Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio) who also criticized the private insurance industry for prioritizing profits over the health of customers.

“The [insurance companies] want to insure healthy people and deny coverage to sick people because it’s better for their stockholders. That’s the way the system works. It’s a broken system, an immoral system, and it’s unconstitutional under the fourteenth amendment which requires equal protection for all of us,” said Perlmutter, whose daughter has epilepsy and will be excluded from receiving health insurance when she is no longer on her parents' plan.

“The bottom line is, Americans all over this country know that health care is essential,” said Hoyer.

Hoyer is a strong supporter of the Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, which would expand health coverage to millions of Americans who are presently uninsured. Funding for this new health care system would derive in part from taxes on the wealthy, cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and increased government spending.

Taxpayers Want Transparency With TARP, Says Treasury Official

Annie Berman - Talk Radio News Service

Taxpayers are not being told what is happening with the money they have involuntarily invested in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Treasury Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky testified to the Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the most important recommendation that he could give to the committee would be a push for more transparency.

Tuesday’s hearing was a part of a series of hearings in which the TARP program is assessed and new developments of the program are reported to the committee.

Barofsky made sure that he was able to answer all questions honestly and thoroughly, as he recognized the concern that the committee has over transparency.

“The full transparency that we [the committee] asked for, which this President and this administration has promised is being blocked by the bureaucracy that often seems to say ‘just trust us and we will deliver,’” said Ranking Member Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

Issa also brought up the staggering $23.7 trillion figure that has everyone on the Hill buzzing, and possibly a little scared. Issa asked Barofsky if he ever said in his reports that the U.S. would lose such an enormous amount of money in assurances and insurances.

“Of course not, and we explicitly point out in the report the existence of collateral…If every program is maximized to the greatest extent possible, that’s what that number is.”

In the last 3 months of the TARP, there have been an expansion of programs including expansion of the mortgage modification program to which approximately $18 billion has been allocated. There have also been more than $70 billion in TARP paybacks, and the Public Private Investment Program (PPIP) was launched with an allocation of approximately $30 billion in taxpayer money.

“Unfortunately, in rejecting SIGTARP’s basic transparency recommendations, TARP has become a program in which taxpayers are not being told what most of the TARP recipients are doing with their money, have still not been told how much their substantial investments are worth, and will not be told the full details of how their money is being invested,” said Barofsky in his opening statements.

Barofsky’s position was created to specifically oversee what happens to TARP funds. He and his office carry out audits on institutions that have received TARP funds, and carry out investigations of issues concerning securities fraud, suspected accounting fraud, insider trading, mortgage service misconduct, mortgage fraud, public corruption, false statements and tax investigations. These investigations were developed through tips or leads provided anonymously to the SIGTARP Hotline (877-SIG-2009) and online at www.SIGTARP.gov.