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RUSH: One more thing here on illegal immigration. The New York Times has this today. ‘After aiding the bill on immigration, employers are now balking,’ big business is balking at this. By the way, the business community, some employers are the ones who helped shape this, folks. They love the cheap labor. That’s the Republican side of this politically. Whether it makes sense to you or not, that’s why many Republicans, some, have supported this. But some of these employers, some of these big business types said yesterday ‘they’re unhappy with the result because it would not cure the severe labor shortages they foresee in the coming decade.’ Labor shortages? If there are labor shortages, it means that salaries ought to be skyrocketing. Labor shortages? This is one of the most bogus excuses I’ve heard yet. Not labor shortages, cheap labor shortages. Cheap labor shortages is what they are talking about. Everybody that’s studied economics seriously knows that labor costs are the largest cost a business has, and the more you can keep them down, the higher the profitability. And of course if you’re a publicly traded company, then you’ve got stock price to worry about, the shareholders.

‘In addition, employers expressed alarm as they learned that the Senate bill would require them to check a government database to verify that all current and former employees — aliens and citizens alike — were eligible to work in the United States. The Senate begins debating the bill on Monday. Supporters, including the White House, had hoped that senators would finish work on it this week, before the Memorial Day recess. But leading members of Congress said Sunday that the bill would take more time and could face significant hurdles.’ In fact the Washington Times has a story today on how few senators actually support this. ‘Fewer than 20 senators are publicly committed to supporting the immigration deal that hits the Senate floor today while nearly 40 are already opposed or have serious concerns, underscoring how difficult it will be for President Bush and his allies to craft a coalition that can pass the bill.’

‘Senator Specter, one of the Republicans who helped craft the deal…’ by the way, if I hear this one more time, I’m going to blow a gasket. ‘Well, you know, good compromise makes everybody mad, and that means it’s good.’ Don’t fall for that, folks. That’s an old myth; that’s an old wives tale that’s always accompanied anything controversial. ‘Well, if it makes everybody mad, must be really, really good, must be on the right track.’ The track record of stuff that’s really, really bad never goes anywhere. It may be thought to be good, but it never gets passed or very rarely does. And I don’t think this is. I don’t think this thing has a snowball’s chance. By the time this gets over to the House, you’ve got a lot of congressmen over there who want to get reelected in November of ’08, and they understand full well that they won’t be reelected. I don’t care what Pelosi said about it. Pelosi said it’s not family friendly enough. Screw that. This is just strategic posturing on her part. That’s just to make it look like that the bill’s not as radically oriented toward the left as it is. You get one of the most radical leftists in government opposing it on some basis, ‘Well, can’t be that bad, Rush, not even Pelosi…’ That’s just strategic posturing. The same thing when Dingy Harry gets on board here. It’s the same thing. It’s like when you know a piece of legislation is going to fail but you need to vote for it to help yourself get reelected. Pelosi, she’s got the comfort here of being able to rip the bill because it probably isn’t going to go very far. We’ll see. Pressure is going to have to be kept up on it.

‘The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said that the immigration bill ‘can’t possibly be completed before Memorial Day.’ On the ABC News program ‘This Week,’ Mr. McConnell said the Senate would need at least two weeks to digest and amend the bill, which he described as ‘a big, complicated piece of legislation.” That’s going to drive McCain crazy. (Doing McCain impression) ‘Debate! There’s no debate. That’s just extracurricular politics. We’re not going to have it, you understand? F you!’ Well, how about that meltdown? Can you see McCain talking to Kim Jong Il? (Laughing.) ‘A delay over Memorial Day would give the public an opportunity to weigh the issue, while lawmakers are home, and would give critics more time to hone their arguments. The speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, expressed concern on Sunday about a central element of the bill, under which the government would establish a point system to evaluate would-be immigrants, giving more weight to job skills and education and less to family ties.’ I love it when I hear liberal Democrats like Pelosi worrying about family values. Sorry, just doesn’t have any substance to it.

I know they’re saying that in agriculture, labor shortages, according to news stories say that fruits and vegetables are rotting. They can’t be harvested. Look, well, you tell me, I was in LA over the weekend, and I went to dinner on Saturday night, and we had some vegetables, and they didn’t say there was a shortage. They didn’t say, ‘Well, the spinach, no, we don’t have it, it’s rotting out there because of labor shortage.’ At breakfast some guys were having fruit. Seemed to be beaucoup fruit, this is southern California. I haven’t seen any shortages. Have you seen pictures of these veggies and fruits rotting on the vine? Have you seen pictures? I haven’t, either. All I know is that whenever I want them, I’m able to get them, and I don’t eat fruit. Can’t stand fruit. But I’ve seen people that order it and eat it and haven’t had any problem with it. Haven’t seen any signs, ‘Warning, no fruit for breakfast today at Denny’s; there’s a labor shortage in the illegal alien ranks, and there’s rotting out there.’ I haven’t seen this. Pelosi said — I don’t care what Pelosi said. Anyway, big labor is all upset here about the labor shortage. Plus, they’re going to have to go out and do the checking themselves. This is what they don’t want, this responsibility. They don’t want it. We need cheap unskilled labor, we just do.

Folks, I’m just going to tell you something. If cheap unskilled labor is what this country needs to continue to be the major player in the world that it is, if cheap unskilled labor is precisely the key to continued prosperity and economic growth and the maintenance of our superpower status, then Mexico ought to be right behind us, because they lead the world in it. Every nation that has cheap, unskilled labor ought to be threatening our status as world superpower. I’ve never heard anything more absurd. I have never heard anything more insulting, that without cheap labor, we can’t survive as we have always known the United States to be.

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