Governor Paul LePage once quipped: “I was Donald Trump before Donald Trump became popular!”
The Republican Governor who attempted to stem the flow of Maine taxpayer- funded welfare to literally the world says he will run again in 2022. If he wins it would end 4 years of Democrat control of a state trending blue in recent years.
‘Working People Vote Republican’: Former Gov. Paul LePage Launches Comeback Bid in Maine
Former Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) announced Monday that he would run once again in 2022 as he seeks to serve as the state’s governor, a role he previously held for two terms.
LePage said in a campaign announcement:
Today I am officially starting my campaign for Governor of Maine. Maine faces several challenges and we must work toward building a better future based on individual liberty, fiscal responsibility, and an economy which empowers everyone including our rural communities.
“We simply cannot continue to look to Washington, DC for bailouts, subsidies, or leadership,” he added. “We must ensure Maine is a great place to raise a family for generations to come, for all Mainers regardless of background.”
This is an excellent opinion piece from Maine, a state we have extensively reported on here at RRW.
The writer very logically explains that before the state willy-nilly invites even more refugees and asylum seekers who supposedly would fill the needs of businesses looking for labor, more data is needed because right now it sure looks like Maine taxpayers are picking up the slack.
Maine Compass: Work permits for asylum applicants? Slow down
We need more data on how long it takes most refugees to make enough in wages to support their families without taxpayers’ help.
As more asylum seekers arrive in Portland, members of Maine’s congressional delegation want to accelerate work permits, pointing to labor shortages and taxpayer costs. But on a closer look, good reasons exist for continuing to require applicants to wait for work permits.
[….]
I believe that the labor benefit of employing asylum applicants is exaggerated, as court denial rates for West African applicants range from 40 percent to 50 percent, which suggests that almost half of Portland’s asylum seekers will eventually be denied and become potentially deportable. And of those who achieve refugee status, there are substantial costs.
Proof that the costs of refugee resettlement are shifted to states, while supposedly some financial benefits accrue at the federal level.
An internal study rejected by the Trump administration and leaked to The New York Times, “The Fiscal Costs of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program at the Federal, State, and Local Levels from 2005-2014,” provides important data for Maine’s representatives in Washington. The authors estimate that refugees and their dependents generated a $52.8 billion federal surplus but caused a net deficit at the state and local levels of $35.9 billion. Since the federal surplus would be shared nationwide, but the state and local deficits fall entirely on state and local governments, increasing the number of refugees in Maine would cost Maine taxpayers.
And the federal benefit? I imagine that the study’s computed federal benefit is inflated, as the impact of refugees on the high cost of national defense or federal debt was not included in this study — a surprising omission.
I suspect the enormous cost to our economy of remittances—money sent back to the home country—was never included either.
Christian continues….
Refugee costs shouldn’t surprise us. Moving to a new country, learning the language and making enough money to support your family is difficult.
The Maine Department of Labor looked at the employment data five years after Somali immigrants arrived in Lewiston-Auburn in 2001. By 2006, only half of working-age Somalis had worked at all. Many of those jobs were seasonal and low wage.
Excellent questions that are NEVER answered:
Before providing work permits to a new population of asylees, we need more data. How long does it take most refugees to make enough in wages to support their families without taxpayer programs? Will Portland’s applicants remain when they get refugee status? Or will they move to cities with better wages and larger populations of their compatriots? Do they have the skills our employers need?
[….]
When politicians provide foreign workers to employers that don’t pay a livable wage, then taxpayers will eventually subsidize the employee with public programs. It would be better to require employers to recruit Americans.
Now here comes the ticking time bomb that no one wants to talk about—what is going to happen to all of the low-skilled workers we have admitted (and continue to admit) by the millions as the automation monster rears its ugly head?
And we might ponder the future. A recent McKinsey study is projecting that automation will replace nearly half of the American workforce by 2055.Walmart already uses robots to stock shelves, and McKinsey predicts that automation will sweep the economy. Let’s slow down, and think this one through.
Since I’m on the subject of Minnesota Somalis this morning, see this story about how a Supreme Court decision this week helped show us again how Socialist Open Borders advocates, like Somali US Rep Omar, are ignorant of US immigration history.
The Minnesota Democrat was slammed on social media after she tweeted her reaction to a Supreme Court decision in favor of the Trump administration’s new immigrant wealth test.
Omar quoted from Emma Lazarus’s famous poem etched on the Statue of Liberty in her tweet Monday, asking her nearly two million followers to retweet “if your immigrant ancestors wouldn’t be let in if this means tested immigration policy was in place then.”
The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote on Monday on the public charge rule***, handing Trump a victory in enforcing the new immigration policy unveiled last August which allows officials to reject efforts to obtain green cards, visas and entry into the U.S. for anyone who might need to rely on public benefits, such as Medicaid and food stamps.
[….]
Omar’s finger-pointing backfired as Twitter users pointed out that when their “immigrant ancestors” did come to America, there were no welfare programs to subsidize their assimilation.
The rule requires immigration officials to assess factors including an applicant’s age, health and assets, while expanding the list of off-limits public services to include Medicaid, food stamps and housing subsidies.
Pregnant women, children, refugees, asylum seekers and certain members of the military are generally exempt.
To my readers who have asked me about this for years—-asked me what happened to a law already on the books—here is a glimmer of (potential) good news.
Needless to say the No Borders Left will go insane, but frankly if the Dems do go on a warpath against the idea that immigrants shouldn’t be sucking up welfare, it will hurt them at the polls in November. No sensible Republican or Democrat supports the importation of welfare recipients.
From Neil Munro at Breitbart (hat tip Richard @highblueridge):
Homeland defense officials are reviving enforcement of a law that is intended to bar legal migrants who cannot earn a living in the United States.
The proposed regulation would implement the existing law, which bars legal immigrants from imposing a “public charge” on Americans. However, the plan is likely to be bitterly opposed by a loose alliance of business groups and by Democrats, both of whom gain when the federal government provides taxpayer aid to migrants, legal or illegal. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Breitbart News:
The administration is committed to enforcing existing immigration law, which is clearly intended to protect the American taxpayer by ensuring that foreign nationals seeking to enter or remain in the U.S are self-sufficient. Any proposed changes would ensure that the government takes the responsibility of being good stewards of taxpayer funds seriously and adjudicates immigration benefit requests in accordance with the law.
The plan was mentioned in a 2017 work-plan released by DHS, but it was highlighted Wednesday by a report in the Washington Post. The report said:
Immigrants who accept almost any form of welfare or public benefit, even popular tax deductions, could be denied legal U.S. residency under a proposal awaiting approval by the Trump administration, which is seeking to reduce the number of foreigners living in the United States.
The proposal would also require Americans who sponsor migrants to post bonds of up to $10,000, which could be used to repay taxpayers for migrants’ use of federal aid.
The plan must be approved by DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and then undergo a months-long public comment and regulatory process before it becomes a large regulation. If adopted, it will replace a 1999 regulation.
Much more here.
If the requirement extended to refugees the entire refugee program would crash and that is because the primary job of the resettlement contractors is to sign incoming refugees up for their ‘services’ (aka welfare). They also help refugees find those low skilled jobs (slaughterhouse and hotel workers, etc) and show them how to supplement meager wages with welfare. And, that idea of posting a bond makes me chuckle.
Imagine this: Catholic Charities, the Lutherans, the Episcopalians and the Jews among the refugee resettlement agencies*** could sponsor refugees and instead of being paid to place them, the non-profit NGO puts up a $10,000 bond for say each family they place with the bond money coming from private charity.
When they have to put their private money where their mouth is, we would find out very quickly that their humanitarian zeal isn’t real!
***These are the nine major federal refugee contractors presently paid millions of tax dollars to resettle refugees. There will never be reform of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program as long as they collect federal funds and act as community organizing and political agitation groups.
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with (low paying) jobs in food production and cleaning hotel rooms, and get them signed up for their services! From most recent accounting, here.
Just a quickie post to make a couple of points.
The federal resettlement contractor (US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants) bringing refugees to Des Moines is the same one bringing refugees to Idaho (in that still festering controversyabout the sexual abuse of a little girl by migrants from Sudan and Iraq). Is Joshua Barr saying any immigrant (including illegals) can get welfare in Des Moines? Hmmm! Photo here: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/2015/09/17/column-new-human-rights-director-looks-dms-underbelly/72370936/ And, for very new readers, who maybe don’t know, refugees are eligible for all forms of welfare available to Americans including SSI for the elderly and disabled.
From KCCI Des Moines:
DES MOINES, Iowa —The first Syrian refugee family to arrive in Iowa is getting help to start a new life here.
Gov. Terry Branstad ordered the state to do nothing to help those fleeing Syria, but a federal agency works with refugees here.
The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants has a field office in Des Moines, and is treating the Syrian refugees like any other refugees, by setting up an apartment and helping them settle in.
The Tameem family from Syria sat through a class with 60 immigrants from Thailand, Nepal, Malysia, Kenya and Somalia to learn the ropes in Iowa. [Have they all been tested for TB, just wondering—ed]
“When you come to the city seeking services, they cannot treat you differently based on your immigrant status,” said Joshua Barr, of the Des Moines Civil & Human Rights Commission.
Of course “services” is code for welfare of all sorts—food stamps, housing, education, medicaid etc…. Go hereto see if USCRI is working in your town. By the way, it is the same contractor planning to bring refugees to Rutland, VT and Reno, NV—got services?
Now here comes the ticking time bomb that no one wants to talk about—what is going to happen to all of the low-skilled workers we have admitted (and continue to admit) by the millions as the automation monster rears its ugly head?
