Revamping Employment Verification System Necessary, Says Schumer

By Sam Wechsler - Talk Radio News Service

The current system used to verify an employee's citizenship status is severely flawed and must be changed or replaced, said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) during a hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security. Keeping illegal immigrants from finding work in the U.S. would drastically decrease their presence in the U.S., he said.

E-Verify, the system now in place, relies on a name, date of birth, and social security number in order to determine whether an employee is a legal citizen. An employer checks the information provided by an employee against a government database. As long as an illegal alien can retrieve a legal citizen’s information, either by stealing it or receiving it from a legal friend, he or she can game the system.

In addition, ten percent of all workers that E-Verify claims are illegal aliens are actually legal citizens, said Michael Aytes, Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Schumer called for a system that would be flawless. “The only way the American people will have faith that our comprehensive immigration reform bill will stop illegal workers from obtaining jobs is if we implement an employment verification system that is tough, fair, easy to use, and effective and which relies upon a non-forgeable biometric identifier,” he said.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) pointed out that some unemployment issues could be solved by replacing employed illegal aliens with actual U.S. citizens. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) was more concerned with the fact that oftentimes illegal aliens are grossly mistreated by corrupt employers.

Gutierrez said, “incorporating an effective employment verification system is our only hope for truly ending illegal immigration. We can do this, and we must do it this year. In the the end, this is not a question of whether or not we can craft an effective system; rather, it is a question of political will.”

Climate Change Legislation Should Be About More Than Climate, Senators Say

By Sam Wechsler - Talk Radio News Service

Climate change legislation is not just about curbing global warming, but also about jobs and America’s health, argued Senators during an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on Tuesday.

Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) argued that while the bill intends to clean up America’s carbon footprint and to create new jobs in the renewable energy sector, it will also kill approximately 2.5 million other jobs. Bond also said that government does not create “green jobs," but rather buys them with taxpayer subsidies.

“I think one of our prime tests in moving forward with energy legislation and environmental legislation is not just energy security for America, which is critically important, we need to do that.....but we also need to keep jobs and create jobs in America,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).


During his testimony, Governor Bill Ritter (D-Colo.) discussed Colorado’s relatively low unemployment rate of 7.6%, which is nearly two points below the national average. “The new energy economy is certainly part of the reason we’re in such relatively strong shape,” he said.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) suggested that the country’s health should be of the utmost concern. He said that while some argue farmers have the most to lose if the country imposes costs and rules to clean up the environment, families with children and grandchildren actually have the most to lose. Citing increased risks of respiratory diseases due to pollution, he stated “we’ve all got a price to pay here, the question is, are we going to continue with our heads buried in the sand?”

“The American Economy Is Again Progressing,” Says President’s Economic Advisor

By Mariko Lamb-Talk Radio News Service

Lawrence Summers, Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, discussed the progress that the Obama administration has made thus far in economic recovery and voiced his confidence that the U.S. will be able to overcome the current economic challenges.

“Substantial progress has been made in rescuing the economy from the risk of economic collapse that looked all too real six months ago,” Summers said.

He reported that “many private forecasters expect to see positive growth in the second half of this year.” Additionally, reports have indicated improved consumer and business sentiment, a 33% decrease in investment grade corporate bonds, and a slower pace of GDP contraction.

A slight pause in Summers’ optimism ensued upon the mention of the high unemployment rate facing the U.S. “Unemployment is substantially higher and job loss has been greater than most observers predicted last winter...unemployment is likely to rise in coming months,” he admitted.

He claimed, however, that although the high unemployment rate is a significant problem, it “does not provide a basis for concluding that the Recovery Act is falling short of its goals.” He advised Americans to be patient since the “peak impact of the stimulus on jobs” is not projected to be achieved until the end of this year.

"While unemployment continues to contract, the available indicators suggest that GDP is on close to a level path with prospects for positive growth to commence during this year,” Summers concluded.

Boehner Rejects White House's Notion That Stimulus Has Worked

By Celia Canon-Talk Radio News Service

On Thursday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio.) slammed Vice President Joe Biden over the inefficiency of the Democrats’ stimulus plan and the lack of jobs it has created in Boehner's home state of Ohio.

“Ohio's unemployment rate is above 10 percent. The nation's unemployment continues to rise. And families and small businesses across the country are asking, ‘Mr. Vice President, where are the jobs?’,” Boehner said.

Boehner blamed the Obama administration for its inability to restore jobs to Americans across the country.

“The administration promised the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent, and they promised the stimulus would create jobs immediately. It's pretty clear now that the administration was wrong,” Boehner said.

The House Minority Leader cited other Democratic legislation that he believes could worsen the economy as well, saying “Here we are at a time when we're trying to save jobs in America, help get our economy going again, and all people see is a lot of wasteful Washington spending, job-killing measures like energy and health care, and, oh, yes, we've got to take care of the saltwater marsh mouse.”

On Wedndesay, Boehner said President Obama and Vice President Biden have been telling lies about why the Stimulus package hasn’t reversed the nation’s spiraling unemployment rate, and argued that GOP-backed tax cut plans would a better solution to return momentum to the struggling economy.

Boehner also touched on the recent letter which incriminates the CIA on enhanced interrogation methods, insisting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should apologize for having accused the intelligence agency of a lack of transparency.

“I do not believe that the CIA lied to Congress. I'm still waiting for Speaker Pelosi to either put up the facts or retract her statement and apologize. And I don't know that this letter changes anything with regard to the speaker's action,” Boehner said.

Metropolitan Unemployment Rises Again

By Sam Wechsler - Talk Radio News Service

On Tuesday morning the Labor Department released numbers that show for the fifth consecutive month the jobless rate in metro areas increased from a year earlier. In May 2009, the national unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent from last years’ 5.2 percent. The unemployment rate was higher than it was in May 2008 in all 372 metropolitan areas.

Two metropolitan areas in Indiana, Kokomo and Elkhart-Goshen, experienced the greatest increase in unemployment from May 2008, increasing by 11.7 and 11.4 percent respectively. These large increases are attributed mainly to layoffs in the transportation equipment manufacturing industry.

The Detroit Metropolitan area reported the highest unemployment rate in May 2009, 14.9 percent, among areas with greater than one million inhabitants during the 2000 census. The largest unemployment rate in the country, 26.8 percent, was reported in El Centro, California; Yuma, Arizona was second at 23.3 percent. Bismarck, North Dakota boasted the lowest jobless rate at 3.5 percent.

All metropolitan employment information for May 2009 can be viewed at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/metro.pdf