Several readers have sent us Newsweek economics columnist Robert J. Samuelson's October 18 The Changing Face Of Poverty, which notes that the increasing poverty rate, and the increasing numbers of individuals without health insurance, are essentially driven by immigration. Of course, both points have already been made by VDARE.COM's Ed Rubenstein (for example, here). I'm confident, however, Samuelson really knows the score. I had marked his work more than ten years ago and sent him an inscribed copy of Alien Nation—no response, alas. But as he says in this column:
You haven't heard much in this campaign about these problems—and you won't. To raise them is to seem racist; that's a heavy burden for politicians or journalists.
Some day soon, I predict, Samuelson will venture to look at the fact that a disproportionate share of jobs are going to immigrants (Ed wrote about it here) and that immigration is impacting the incomes, not just of the unskilled, but also of the college-educated (here). More power to him.
Mickey Kaus has an item on welfare reform, and the drop in illegitimacy caused by welfare reform, and removal of a guaranteed income for any mother of an illegitimate child. He refers to Jason DeParle's new book on the subject and says:
DeParle drives home a point I first saw made by journalist Leon Dash: Many teenagers have out-of-wedlock babies because they want to have the babies, not because they do not have access to or knowledge of contraception.
This is what makes neoliberals look naïve. Didn't everybody always know that if you pay people to have children they'll have children?
Leon Dash is a black reporter who spent a year in 1984-85 living embedded in "one of the poorest ghettos in Washington, D.C" as a reporter. He wrote When Children Want Children.
He too was surprised that the young mothers were getting pregnant on purpose. But it wouldn't have surprised any conservative anywhere, at any time.
It wouldn't have surprised Henry Hazlitt in 1973, or Herbert Spencer in 1884. It certainly wouldn't have surprised Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan.
Why does it take years of research so that a neo-liberal can have a Road to Damascus moment and realize what their mothers and grandmothers knew?
Joe Guzzardi is a male writer willing to write about issues that affect women. And he doesn't also get his choker chain pulled by some woman as a result. I commend him for both.
That said, I disagree with my friend's analysis of why women support Bush.
Joe's right about the salary gap between male and female political staffers. There really is a noticeable and significant gap.
But, in my experience as Chief of Staff for a Member of the California State Assembly, most senior staff members or decision maker, at least for Republican politicians, were female.
Not to destroy the image of the sweet, unassuming little woman…but most women who choose politics as an occupation are far more interested in controlling the decision-making process than compensation.
Plus I think the reason women are shifting their support toward Bush isn't complicated. (Full disclosure: Yes, I am a Bush supporter).
It is due to human nature; something instinctive in our sex.
Women naturally gravitate towards men like President Bush—men who make decisions, right or wrong, and offer no apology.
I don't mean he is incapable of admitting error. But he is a disciplined man, ready to brazen out any blunder but only in due course; never at the expense of the duty at hand.
Indecisive men, men who say "I don't know, what do you want to do?" appear weak.
I look at President Bush and see a Commander-in-Chief. The extraordinary number of military personnel under his command need a leader who will pick a side and then abide by it.
Maybe President Bush will do that with immigration reform. But I won't hold my breath.
