Butler on Business WAFS 1190, Atlanta, 10-31-12

My 10 minute radio segment with Alan Butler, WAFS 1190, Atlanta's premier radio station. I come on at the 28 minute mark. Topics today: EU and Obama's desperate indoctrination ad with children blaming their parents for Obama's economic failures.
I come on before Presidential candidate Gary Johnson, the governor of New Mexico. Why is he exactly running at this point as an Independent? To siphon off votes from Romney?

http://www.cyberears.com/cybrss/17255.mp3

A Late September Day in 2012

Between the suffocating smoke wafting to the third floor of my cousin’s villa from burning egg-plants on the indoor grill, the ambulance sirens, the wild dogs roaming the streets all night barking, and the cock-a-doodle of the rooster from the chicken coop across the street announcing the start of a new day, I had no chance to sleep past 7 a.m. The rooster is a bit confused, he cock-a-doodles all hours of the day and night.

I woke up to a cacophony of sounds of a big city, so close to downtown, I could see the cathedral spires from my window and hear the bells toll. The trolley bus running up and down the street below was filled to refuse with humanity packed like sardines, going downtown to work. A mass exodus of villagers occurs every morning and every late afternoon. Driving to work is prohibited by the high price of gasoline, the lack of parking spaces, and the deliberate narrow roads and streets, built at a time when only the ruling elites were allowed or could afford to purchase a car.

I took a picture from the window of my bedroom. The skyline is very crowded by drab high-rises that dwarf my cousin’s beautiful and elegant ocre-colored villa. This section of the street has not been demolished yet to make room for more utilitarian concrete twelve story apartment buildings. I love the red roofs on the remaining homes on Malu Rosu Street. They are so cheery in an otherwise landscape of grey and pollution filth. It has not rained all summer long, it is dusty everywhere and grass, unless copiously watered, is crisply brown.

The street is eight minutes-walk to downtown yet many homes still do not have running water – the city never attached them to the water department system. A few have their own electric pumps. Every morning there is a stream of people bringing buckets of dirty water and dumping them directly into the street drain. When the drain clogs and over runs into the street, the fetid smell forces residents to call the city’s water department.

I am fascinated by my surroundings yet it is so noisy, I miss my quiet home and the solitude of my woods. Anna’s cactus is in full bloom this morning. It started opening last night. The delicate white flower stays open 24 hours and then it dies. I saw it last year when it bloomed earlier. The warmer temperatures this year must have tricked its biological clock and it opened a couple of weeks later.

The hurried urbanites on foot from the surrounding grey and dingy high-rises crowding the landscape discharge into the streets like a huge colony of ants looking for food. True to form, a large portion of the citizens’ budget is spent on food and housing. For this reason, politicians like to bribe the lower class voters with tokens of food during campaigning, luring them to the voting booth on Election Day with food as well, including free bus rides.

Not much is illegal in this country anymore, the corruption is endemic. White collar crime or traffic offenses are seldom punishable. Most people know someone who can forgive their violations for the right cash payment or bartering other types of favors. A favor is not just something you do for a close friend or out of kindness, it is commodity money, and must be returned in kind.

Driving on the highly congested roads is a hazard in itself. Drivers never stay in their lanes because they do not exist as a painted space; sometimes one lane is occupied by three cars side by side and only a native can understand the irate hand signals indicating who has the right of way. Passing takes place on the right, on the left, in-between cars, on the shoulder, and on the sidewalk. Pedestrians are fair game even in designated cross-walks. Crowding three cars in a parking space designed for one and double parking are quite common.

Cousin Ana drove us to the abundant market, full of vegetables and fruits, flowers, and busy bees buzzing the nectar oozing from crushed fruits. I bought a purple mum and candles to take to my Dad’s grave in Popesti. The gas station attendant filled our SUV with $10 a gallon Diesel. I remained silent on the way to Popesti. Memories were flooding back as landmarks flashed by – the country school where my six cousins graduated from, the creek filled with fish where we bathed in summertime. The road was blacktopped and I was riding in a comfortable car instead of the communist bus smoking oil and fumes inside for two long hours, bumping us with every pot hole.

The cemetery seemed over run with weeds in some places but the view to the valley below was spectacular. I stood on the cliff, peering into the distance, re-living my 5 km walk to the country fair with Grandma and cousin Gigi. The trek seemed endless for five year olds but the reward at the end was worth it – a ride on the merry-go-around, freshly roasted corn, and a clay whistle or toy Grandma always bought us.

Wild flowers bloomed around the dilapidated church, which had fallen into disrepair because there were not enough builders for all the construction projects after the fall of communism in 1989.  I had met an architect in Washington State earlier this year who told me that she had traveled to Romania to give pro-bono construction advice in many church projects in Maramures.

Dad’s cross has weathered so badly – he passed away 23 years ago, six months before the fall of communism. He would have loved to have seen the positive changes that took place since the demise of Ceausescu’s totalitarian regime.

I planted the purple mum and watered it copiously. The friendly owner of a house nearby lent me a shovel and gave me a bucket of water. He was playing with his little girl in the yard. I lit the candles and said a prayer in memory of my Dad’s sacrifice. It felt sad and comforting at the same time to be so close to the person who gave me life and freedom, to the places where we grew up and yet I felt such longing for my home in Virginia.

My heart ached for the unfulfilled past but rejoiced in the present. I was well enough to fly 7,000 miles to plant flowers on my Dad’s grave and pay my respects to his life cut short by the commies. America, the promised land, has given me so many opportunities that I would not have been permitted under communist Romania. Had I stayed, I would have been just another daughter of the poor and exploited proletariat. Because Dad let me go, I had a shot at a better life. I never squandered this gift.

The water well in front of the cemetery is dry now; people have their own hydro-pumps. The houses nearby are shaded by pergolas covered with grapevines laden with golden and red grapes, waiting to be picked. The crop is abundant and the grapes are especially sweet.

I took a few photographs and left my Daddy behind, alone but surrounded by such simple peace and tranquility. His resting place is sacred ground – he gave his life for what he believed in most ardently, freedom from oppression. I know he is looking over me from heaven because I escaped to freedom and I am able to carry on his legacy. I have touched so many lives in my career, he would be happy.

 

 

 

 

Mom and Dad, We're Blaming You for Obama's Failures

Voters have short memories and are easily duped by a charming smile, lies, and empty promises. Many voters lack a basic understanding of history, government, and economics.

Only an uninformed or welfare dependent American would vote for a person endorsing the repulsively obscene ad that presents a young woman urging Democrats to carefully pick their candidate in the same way they picked the guy they lost their virginity to.

The Democrat factor of desperation and indoctrination is on full display in the latest ad which uses young children, in chilling lyrics, blaming their parents for the economic failures of the Obama’s administration. The ad takes me back to the communist indoctrination I suffered under the communist regime when the absolute ruler, Ceausescu, and his wife, Elena, forced us to sing in school praises to them as our real father and mother. Our biological parents, we were told, were stupid and needed re-education.

The pro-Obama ad does not stop there; in carefully chosen rhyme, brainwashed children describe an apocalyptic future in which “sick people just die,” “the oil fills the sea,” “strip mines are fun and free,” and “the Earth is cracked/Big Bird is sacked/And the atmosphere is frying.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwlW4lx6TTo)

I cannot imagine a more perverted image of America in the future, described by pro-Obama liberal supporters who shamelessly use children to propagate hate and advance their Marxist and environmentalist agenda.

The outrageous song ends in, “You did your best/ You failed the test/ Mom and Dad/ We’re blaming you!” I am speechless! We live in the Hollywood make-believe world inspired by the Matrix. No wonder our schools and curriculum are dumbed down.

The truth is, intelligent and informed American voters blame this President and his failed policies. It is not mom and dad who are endangering their children’s future unless they vote again for a President who has brought America to its knees and has no economic plan to save the best country in the world, the “shining city on the hill” that we love.

As a former professor, I know firsthand the level of economic ignorance among the American population at large, even those with college degrees. The curriculum taught at most colleges is based on the interpretation of meaningless graphs that most young people cannot correlate to reality. Students’ eyes glaze over when they see graphs – how can they understand them when they have rudimentary knowledge of mathematics?

When students pursue degrees in Social Studies, Anthropology, Women’s Studies, and other fluff degrees with slim possibility of finding a job much less a six-figure job promised by eager college advisors, they are never required to take science classes or Economics. Some students are incapable of balancing their own checkbooks and have no idea how our government runs.

If you add the lack of basic economics knowledge to the lack of historical facts and American government, you have the perfect Obama voter who is ill-informed, easily manipulated, but has very strong ignorant opinions, mostly based on feelings or the misinformation fed to them on a daily basis by the main stream media, the aggressive promotional army of the Obama campaign.

The main stream media spins the truth, hides the facts, and lies in order to provide cover for and to make their favorite candidate look innocent. How can you not adore the rich Messianic power of someone who represents the interests of the poor and the downtrodden with someone else’s money?

Sadder still, most young Americans get their information from CNN, MSNBC, and comedians like David Letterman and Jon Stuart.

Informed Americans with abundant economic, historic, and political knowledge get their information selectively from a variety of sources on the web. Nobody in this category believes the liberal media.

Comedians like Jay Leno go out into the streets to expose the glaring ignorance of the average voter with basic questions of history, government, and current politics. The ignorant Democrat voters are easily persuaded that Obama’s disastrous economic policies belong to Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate. These are people who cannot recognize political figures, the offices they hold, and the platforms of their darling politicians they vote for and financially support.

Democrat voters vandalize their opponents’ signs, deposit feces on porches with Romney signs in their yards, and deface the cars of those who display bumper stickers supporting Republicans. Democrats have become the party of intolerance and cowardly hooliganism.

Obama keeps blaming Republicans and the “mess he inherited.” Many former Presidents have inherited “messes” but they tried their best to rectify the situation. Our President exacerbated a fixable situation by making it worse, infinitely worse. He failed the economy, failed to protect the American citizens, and represented the interests of the world, of United Nations, not the interests of the United States and the American people.

President Obama has tripled the deficit and did everything possible to destroy the economy and the job creators. He caused huge unemployment among the oil and coal industries, doing the EPA’s bidding and the environmentalists’ will. The price of oil skyrocketed from $1.79 when Obama took office to $4 now while blaming others for his refusal to allow drilling domestically and to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

His own economic ignorance was on full display during the presidential debate when he stated that gas was cheaper when he became President because the economy was about to collapse. Since he “saved” the economy, oil is now $4 a gallon.

In a few days, we are going to vote. We hope the producers and the informed will outnumber the ignorant liberal voters and voters on welfare who are only interested in “free stuff” from Obama. We conservatives who believe in the free market and self-reliance will eventually stop producing “free stuff” for welfare recipients and Obama will have to take benefits away. Before you vote, ask yourself, how much worse off you are when compared to four years ago. If you give an honest answer, the choice will be clear.

 

 

Butler on Business WAFS 1190 Atlanta 10-24-12

http://host1.cyberears.com//17720.mp3

I discuss my new book, "U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy" (ten minutes).
I come on at the 30 minute mark.

Bureaucrats of EU and Global Governance

The 27-nation European Union is hanging by a thread like a loose tooth. For months now, we have been warned weekly of impending doom and gloom if the euro is not saved, if Spain, Greece, and Italy are not bailed out by the European Central Bank and if France and Germany do not cooperate and agree to pay even more to the bankrupt southern EU membership who refuses to alter their generous socialist programs expenditures and the way they approach fiscal policy. 

The separatist voices in the EU are getting stronger. Catalonia wants independence from its own country; they are tired of paying the lion’s share of Madrid’s lavish expenditures. “When everybody was rich, nobody thought of how much it cost us to be part of Spain. But now everybody sees it,” said Oriol Pujol. This richness, of course, came to Spain in the form of easy money while the economic and construction boom took place before the 2008 housing crash. It seems that the producing citizens have a problem with this globalized economy and governance which depends on spreading the wealth.

With a Spanish unemployment rate of 25 percent, Catalonia itself had asked for a bailout from their central government in Madrid. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy had promised Catalonia $23 billion at a time when Spain needs a bailout desperately.

Scotland and Flanders are following in the footsteps of Catalonia, wanting out of the EU.  Although the EU touts shared sovereignty, it actually discourages independence of member regions.

Richer member nations are weary of subsidizing poorer countries. EU bureaucrats want a stronger fiscal union and more centralized control over national budgets and banks, making the parliaments of member countries irrelevant and obsolete.

Lavish spending, outrageous social programs, out-of-control debt, outlandish infrastructure projects, and the mushrooming growth of bureaucracy in already burdened economies have pushed to the brink the ability of stronger economies like Germany to subsidize poorer regions or countries.

Catalonia in Spain, Baden-Württemberg in Germany, Rhone-Alpes in France, and Lombardy in Italy, a regional group that bypasses their central governments, call themselves “the four motors for Europe” because they have a combined Gross Domestic Product larger than Spain’s.

In a recent interview, Oskar Freysinger, Vice President of the Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei) stressed that the European Union is imposed on nations by technocrats. In his opinion, the European Union will eventually fail because “citizens are identifying less and less with a bureaucratic anti-democratic and centralized power” like the EU. 

When asked, Freysinger emphasized that Switzerland’s adherence to EU would be an organizational, economic, and financial catastrophe. Such a membership would violate the two pillars of the Swiss Constitution, democracy and federalism, causing an increase in the value of the added tax (VAT) alone of 8-20 percent. Switzerland does not wish to be a cash machine to the debts accrued by the bankrupt southern European states.

In a widely circulated You Tube video, at the conclusion of the European Council meeting which was held on October 18-19, 2012, Nigel Farage MEP, Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Co-President of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group in the European Parliament made headlines with his direct speech to Herman Van Rompuy, the first full-time President of the European Council. Herman Van Rompuy is a Belgian politician of the Christian Democratic and Flemish Party. (Strasbourg, October 23, 2012)

“You are the quiet assassin of nation state democracy.” And sure enough, in your dull and technocratic way, you’ve gone about your course, but I have to say, you are even worse than I’ve thought you were going to be. I thought it was going to be a federal Europe, a federal union but now it appears, with every statement you make that you want total subjugation of the states to completely undemocratic structures based in Brussels.”  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSoCZs8WlDg)

Nigel Farage described the atmosphere surrounding the bailouts for Greece, Spain, Ireland, and Italy when everyone in the chamber was fearing the economic meltdown; Rompuy was calm because, in Farage’s opinion, Rompuy saw the bailouts as an opportunity to take control. “The sinister troika coming in, investigating the situation, 50 officials telling puppet prime ministers what they may or may not do.” Nigel was referring to the sinister troika as the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, and the European Central Bank.

The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union responsible for legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the union’s treaties, and daily running of the EU. There is one commissioner per member state, 27 in total, who are bound to represent the European Union and not the interests of their home state. The President of the Commission is Jose Manuel Barroso, The European Council proposes the president and the European Parliament elects him. The Council then appoints the other 26 members in agreement with the nominated President.

The European Central Bank is the monetary policy enforcer for the EU. Its main goal is price stability at 2% or below inflation rate and controls short-term interest rates. The ECB’s Governing Council makes decisions every month by analyzing economic and monetary developments in member countries and the risks to price stability, making decisions on the appropriate level of their key interest rates.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), established in 1944 at Bretton Woods Conference and housed in Washington, D.C., had an original stated goal of stabilizing exchange rates and assisting in the reconstruction of the world’s international payment system after World War II.

The IMF describes itself now as “an organization of 188 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.”

Nigel Farage acknowledges that many Council members “want Spain to take the bailout so that they too can be subjugated to this new order. Indeed, in Italy, the appointee there, Mr. Monti, is very keen for his country to be bailed out because he ‘fears the parliamentary democracy could bring down the union.’”

Farage describes the next phase as forcing those who “do not need or want a bailout to accept a bailout, to sign budget guarantees and to have the power to strike down national budgets after they’ve been through national parliaments.” This is eerily similar to some of the banks here in the U.S., forced to accept the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) although they did not need it, want it, or ask for it.

“I feel that the Euro zone is now in a very dark place, economically, socially, politically, and I fear for the countries trapped inside in that prison will be there for many years to come. It is against this backdrop that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the European Union.”

“This is a divided, split Europe, with neo-Nazi parties on the rise, with violent demonstrations in the streets, and I frankly think that the award of that Nobel Prize devalues that whole organization.” Most of the Nobel prizes are chosen by academicians and scientists while the Peace Prize is chosen by a 5-member committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament.

Farage says that the European Union does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Europe should be thankful to NATO, to millions of American soldiers who served on European soil to maintain peace, yet Europeans do not say a word about it because they loathe America and everything it stands for.

Farage ends his impassionate speech with the prediction that “the big majority of the Brits want to leave the union.” Constituents are not happy with Cameron’s wishy-washy stance in the EU and a political change in the Cameron government is likely to happen as he is losing the support of millions of his own voters.

In the meantime, the European Union remains a laboratory study of global governance and economic control gone awry. The question remains, are Americans paying attention to this powerful lesson?

Food, Voting, and Obamacare

When Michelle Obama announced her signature initiative Let’s Move in order to change, in her perception and opinion, the nation’s unhealthy diet and girth, one of the first restaurants to jump on the bandwagon was Olive Garden, followed by Red Lobster, both owned by Darden Industries. They trimmed the size of their offerings but prices stayed the same.

I made a conscious decision to personally boycott the two restaurants, not because I was against eating healthy or a smaller portion but because I did not think, it was the role of government to tell us what to eat, how much salt to use, or how many ounces of soda to consume. Many of us can stand to lose a few pounds which we can do on our own without government interference or the nanny state.

Michelle Obama also dabbled in overnight gardening at the White House although she does not hold degrees in horticulture or nutrition. Schools have changed their menus at her directive, requiring increased food expenditures, offering fresh fruit and vegetables which children promptly started throwing in the garbage or using them for food fights. High-schoolers even staged protests across the country, demanding that the old menu be reinstated. For much younger students, fruits and vegetables are still an acquired taste, particularly if parents have not introduced them earlier to their children as part of daily meals.

The Darden Restaurant Group which employs 180,000 people across the U.S. is making headlines again. In anticipation of the unfortunately named Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, Darden is cutting hours for many employees in four different markets. They are not sure how much Obamacare is going to cost the company in the future. To mitigate increased cost, they are cutting employees from full-time to part-time status. By reducing their hours, Darden does not have to pay for their healthcare, forcing some employees into the government-run exchanges which are part of Obamacare. Additionally, there is a re-definition of full-time status as 30 hours of work per week.

The Darden Industries CEO, Clarence Otis Jr., has given a lot of money to Democrats. He has been an ardent supporter of Let’s Move Campaign, the signature healthy initiative of First Lady, Michelle Obama. If the company is to survive, according to the CEO, major changes must take place. The number of full-time employees must be lowered in order to avoid the $100 per day per employee penalty in Obamacare if insurance is not purchased. Darden cannot afford to offer full-time insurance benefits to all of its 180,000 employees. The Darden Restaurant Group survived so far because they received a waiver for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in 2010. Most waivers will expire at the end of 2012 or have already expired.

And Clarence Otis Jr. is not alone. Real estate mogul, David A. Siegel, who runs Westgate Resorts, a huge Orlando-based time share company in Orange County, an Obama leaning county, has sent a warning letter to his employees. If Obama is re-elected, there is a strong possibility of layoffs. He is not exactly telling them to vote for either candidate, however, if they vote for Obama, increased costs and uncertainty would force him to reduce staff. 

Hiring across the country has been on hold because of the entire tax structure increase. Most companies face an uncertain future about taxation for employers and employees, the overt and hidden costs of Obamacare, forcing big changes for many firms. Business confidence has been quite low in the last four years. New taxes on successful producers will leave Siegel with no choice but to cut the size of his company. His employees have been reduced already from 8,000 four years ago to 7,000 today.

“With the new Obamacare coming in and now the threat of higher taxes, it just means less money to expand our business. We are not going to fire anybody, lay off anybody, as a result of who they vote for, or who they lean towards, it’s just that I want them to know what the future holds for them and their families.” (David A. Siegel, CEO)

As the new round of Medicare cuts was to take effect in October this year, the administration found $8 billion to avoid the painful cuts temporarily under the guise of research. The $8 billion helped delay the elderly outrage at the voting booth when confronted with the shift of $719 billion over ten years from Medicare to Obamacare.

This is what happens when nationalized health care is passed in the middle of the night, without bipartisan debate, and then forced on Americans against their vociferously expressed will. As Nancy Pelosi said, “You must pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” The American people are finding out and they do not like it.

 

 

Illegal Aliens and Federal Benefits

Theoretically, the law forbids illegal aliens from receiving benefits reserved for American citizens with the exception of emergency Medicaid. In practice, it does not prevent any of them from applying for and receiving benefits paid for by American taxpayers who sometimes, are themselves denied benefits.

Emergency Medicaid provided in emergency rooms, although well intentioned, has been used and abused by illegal aliens as their own personal physician, resulting in the bankruptcy of many small hospitals across the nation, particularly in California.

Federal benefits distributed to illegal aliens include: grants, contracts, loans, professional and commercial licenses, retirement, welfare, WIC, disability, public housing, college education, Pell grants, food stamps, tax credits, earned income credits, tax refunds, and unemployment benefits.

The Census Bureau reports 40 million foreign-born people residing in the United States. In this category, one-third is estimated to be illegal aliens. Liberal main stream media calls them “undocumented workers,” “in the shadows residents,” or “unauthorized residents.”

According to the Pew Hispanic Center there were 11.2 million “unauthorized immigrants” in 2010.  Their in-house demographer, Jeffrey Passel, used 2008 Current Population Survey (CPS) to estimate “the number of persons living in families in which the head of household or the spouse was an authorized alien,” for a total of 8.8 million families. Liberals like to redefine illegal aliens with euphemisms that suit their agenda. Other sources publish much higher numbers of illegals.

Illegal alien families are likely to have U.S. citizen children or “anchor babies.” These families are given “mixed status” by the Congressional Research Service. Passel also estimates that one in three illegal alien children is poor. This is obvious since illegal aliens have fled their home countries mostly for economic reasons and dire poverty.

Liberals lobby Congress to deal with illegal aliens based on controversies such as demographic issues, how to treat illegal families that have “anchor babies” who are U.S. citizens, and how strict identification requirements may hurt Americans who are denied benefits.

Once a foreign national had crossed the border illegally, they have committed a crime which is not punished lightly in most countries. In the U.S. however, progressives demand that illegal aliens have due process rights, eligibility for federal assistance, educational opportunities paid by taxpayers, military service opportunities, employment rights, and pathways to citizenship. No other country in the world rewards law breaking with citizenship but the United States.

Illegal aliens, a.k.a. “unauthorized residents,” come in three categories:

-          Visitors who overstay their nonimmigrant visas

-          Foreign nationals who enter illegally (“surreptitiously” as liberals like to say)

-          Foreign nationals who enter with forged documents

-          Pregnant foreign nationals who enter illegally in the last month or trimester of pregnancy in order to deliver “anchor babies” (These foreigners have spawned organized “anchor baby tourism” in cities like New York)

 According to “jus soli,” codified in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, children of slaves born on U.S. soil are American citizens. Liberals extended this principle to the children of any illegal alien who happens to give birth on U.S. soil. Thus a new breed of families is codified by the Pew Hispanic Center as “mixed-immigration status families.” However, foreign diplomats’ children who are born on U.S. soil are citizens of their parents’ respective countries and not American citizens.

The Congressional Research Service which produces data for Congress identified another category of illegal immigrants, “Quasi-legal migrants.” In certain cases, the Department of Homeland Security issues temporary employment authorization documents (EADs) to aliens who are not authorized to reside in the United States. They can, however, obtain Social Security cards. The CRS identified several groups in this “quasi-legal” category:

-          Those with temporary humanitarian relief who have Temporary Protected Status (TPS)

-          Asylum seekers with cases pending for at least 180 days

-          Those awaiting in the U.S. the resolution of legal permanent residency process (family and fiancées of legal residents)

-          Tourists, students, and temporary workers who overstayed nonimmigrant visas with petitions awaiting to adjust status as employment-based LPRs (legal permanent resident)

The “quasi-legal” groups are often denied approval for legal permanent resident status. Twenty-five percent of asylum seekers and generally, 80-85% of LPRs petitions are eventually approved.

Special illegal alien immigrant juveniles (under the age of 21 and unmarried) who were homeless, orphans, or victims of abusive family situations are eligible for permanent legal residence and become dependents of the courts. The court grants custody of the child to a state agency, declares him/her eligible for foster care, and determines that it is not in the best interest of the child to return to his/her country of birth. Taxpayers then become de facto supporters of such children. According to CRS, since 2008, such children exceeded 1,000 each year.

“Permanently residing under the color of law,” (PRUCOL) has been used historically to give benefits to foreign nationals who are known to be residing in the U.S. yet the government has no plans to deport. “Quasi-legal” aliens fall in this category of PRUCOL.

Social Services Block Grants and migrant health center services are offered as limited exceptions within the 1996 welfare act:

-          Treatment under Medicaid for emergency medical conditions (except organ transplant)

-          Short-term emergency disaster relief

-          Immunizations

-          Testing and treatment for communicable diseases

-          Soup kitchens, crisis counseling, short-term shelters

-          HUD assistance

Although the law clearly states to the contrary, pre-natal care, treatment, and assistance under Medicaid, CHIP,  nutrition programs, and other benefits are given to illegal aliens, all funded by U.S. taxpayers.

Title IV of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation ACT (PRWORA) of 1996 (P.L. 104-193) “established comprehensive restrictions on the eligibility of all noncitizens for means-tested public assistance, with the exceptions for LPRs with a substantial U.S. work history or military connection.” PRWORA expressly bars illegal aliens from most state and locally funded benefits.

The Department of Labor estimated $53.8 billion in unemployment benefits were paid to illegal aliens in 2002 and IRS paid $4.2 billion in refundable tax credits in 2010 to illegal aliens. Unemployment compensation overpayment of 0.51% of total was made to illegal aliens. (Congressional Research Service, “Unauthorized Aliens’ Access to Federal Benefits: Policy and Issues, Ruth Ellen Wasem, September 17, 2012)

The Food Stamp Program reported that 1.9 million U.S. citizen children (“anchor babies”) living with illegal alien parents received food stamps, or 7% of all participants. Medicaid spent $2.5 billion, $2.2 billion on treatment for the uninsured, and $1.9 billion on food assistance programs, including emergency Medicaid and school lunch programs. According to Steven Camarota, Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies, “Many of the costs associated with illegals are due to their American-born children, who are awarded U.S. citizenship at birth…greater efforts at barring illegals from federal programs will not reduce costs because their citizen children can continue to access them.” (Steven A. Camarota, The High Cost of Cheap Labor: Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget, Washington, D.C.: Center for Immigration Studies, August 2004)

At a time when so many Americans are unemployed, underemployed, out of the labor force, and 47 million Americans are on food stamps because of the disastrous economic policies pursued by the current administration, should we continue to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on illegal aliens who are the responsibility of their own countries?