Dick Morris: Jobs data signal GOP victory

Amid the media focus on the basic data in the August jobs report — that the economy “added” 143,000 jobs — is the figure that will underscore the Republican efforts to take the Senate.

During the month of August, the economy added about 659,000 jobs that went to foreign-born Americans (naturalized citizens, green card holders and illegal immigrants combined). At the same time, it lost about 643,000 jobs that had been held by native-born Americans.

{mosads}Indeed, since President Obama took office, the number of foreign-born Americans who have jobs has risen by 2.9 million while the number of domestically born Americans who are employed has grown by only 1.2 million.

In other words, about three out of four jobs created during the Obama presidency went to immigrants.

When the president was inaugurated in 2009, 14.9 percent of all employed Americans had been born outside of the 50 states. At this point, the number has risen to 16.8 percent.

The average American worker might not know these numbers (they are not publicized by the liberal media), but he feels the data in his gut. He is coming to realize that there will be no income growth or real employment increase, unless the U.S. limits immigration.

The immigration issue has now morphed into the economic issue and the terror issue.

Our wide-open back border is encouraging both wage stagnation and joblessness in the United States and inviting terrorists to cross over and to create havoc in our country.

Reports indicate a difference of opinion between leaders in the United Kingdom and the United States on how to cope with nationals who have left to fight for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. News accounts suggest the British want to keep them out of their country lest they commit acts of terrorism, while our government would rather admit them, track their movements and interrogate them. Is the difference because we cannot keep them out? Is it because we don’t really have a southern border, and there is no way to close a door that has been effectively removed?

{mosads}Historically, it was Republicans who favored open borders in their effort to accommodate their robber baron patrons with an ongoing supply of cheap labor. It was that propensity, in part, that encouraged the growth of urban labor unions and led to their affiliation with the Democratic Party.

Now it is the Democratic Party that is opening the gates to foreign workers. Their unions remain opposed to bringing in low-wage workers, fearful that the competition will lower the incomes of their members. But no matter. The honchos of the Democratic Party, led by the president, could care less. They want Latino voters, and they are willing to make their union supporters walk the plank in order to get them into the country. 

Any analysis of income inequality has to focus on the two factors that lower working-class incomes: immigration and foreign trade. Even as Obama protests inequality and highlights marginal remedies like raising the minimum wage, he turns a blind eye to China’s currency manipulation, permitting artificially low-priced imports to undercut the price of products made in the USA. 

For how long will America’s workers let Obama get away with this game? How long will they tolerate Democratic policies that encourage immigration, legal or not, and do nothing to stop illegal currency manipulation to get us to buy foreign products?

Morris, who served as adviser to former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and former President Clinton, is the author of 16 books, including his latest, Screwed and Here Come the Black Helicopters. To get all of his and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to dickmorris.com.