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Ban aliens from economic stimulusTue, 12/16/2008 - 3:57pm
By: Letters to the ...
You needn’t read very far before you realize that this is not a letter of fact, but rather of emotion. I realize that I may be accused of racism or, at the very least, bigotry. But I feel that we are about to enter a new dimension in our work force. If the proposed economic stimulus programs come about, I have my doubts that the average citizen will benefit. If you remember a couple of years ago when road building was going on in Fayette County, most of the workers were Hispanic. They were not doing work that was turned down by fussy citizens, but rather were operating the bulldozers, front loaders, paving machines and dump trucks. In new construction, all the roofing crews, framing crews, bricklaying crews, cement crews, etc., were Hispanic. And if you went to Kroger or Wal-Mart on Friday night, there were lines at the customer service counters waiting to send money orders out of the country. If the proposed new programs do create new jobs in the construction business – be it in commercial or residential, or infrastructure – I believe that we will again be swamped with out of country workers. While most of the workers may be legal and on visas, we need to have the jobs available for our sons, or daughters, or grandchildren, or ourselves. We live here and pay taxes here. I have no idea how to ask for a law to be passed to prevent this, but perhaps someone does. If they could respond in this column or to my email, russ-stauffer@comcast.net, maybe we could start some sort of movement to require employers who are doing business in Fayette County, or even in the state of Georgia, to hire U.S. citizens first. Otherwise, I believe that for every $1 million in stimulus there will be at least $700,000 going to Mexico. We need to get the protection in place before the incentive packages arrive, or again we will see the construction industry hiring workers who will work longer for less. That may be of benefit to the owners of the companies receiving the contracts, but it will not be of benefit to the rest of us taxpayers. Russ Stauffer Peachtree City, Ga. login to post comments |