Change is Certainly On the Way

The Employee Free Choice Act (Which is neither free nor a choice for employees) will be passed, raising union power and wages at the expense of those persons who are not special enough to be part of their exclusive little club. A guild which has a history of discrimination, intimidation, corruption, and general inefficiency. Not to mention denying workers the right to free and fair ballot votes on whether or not they actually want to unionize? Yes they can.

Meanwhile, thanks to the Grassley-Sander amendment, all banks receiving a bail-out cannot hire skilled H-1B visa *workers*. Those *workers* who are trained in the research laboratories and universities, who provide the abilities and talents necessary to push our nation forward, and who contribute productively to the economy in ways that cannot be measure by amateur government economists (but are certainly appreciated by their co-workers and friends in the departments here). Perhaps Mr. Biden just does not like their thick accents and feels they should be working in 7-11's in Wilmington with the finance PhDs that can pull us out of this MBA made mess. The degrees that they got by the way without resorting to plagiarism. Unlike Joe. Yes they can.

The useless wall that our president voted for in the Senate is climbing higher and higher, no doubt built with the use of the immigrant labor that the US government is trying to keep out. The border wall which has been shown time and time again to be ineffective and offensive, in place of actual immigration reform which would threaten the power of union bosses? Yes they can.

A Buy-American clause that was slipped in to the Fiscal Stimulus package and supported by Mr. Biden, reviving the zombie of irrational nationalist protectionism, prophesying our coming isolationist re-exile from economic integration and the rest of the quickly globalizing world a la Smoot-Hawley? Yes they can.

Tom Daschle, Tim Geithner, the Solis' family, all blatantly cheat... I'm sorry, "misrepresent" and "mistakenly calculate" thousands of dollars worth of taxes they should be paying. Probably the tip of the ice berg of the only real bi-partisan effort in government: to cheat the American public for as much as possible, while the IRS spends its time auditing people NOT connected to government. Yes they can.

Government regulatory committees and organizations set up to enforce fair play in the economy, taking kickbacks and ignoring whistle blowers while the good times roll, then turn around and complaining about how they don't have enough power when their incompetence is revealed. Yes they can.

Guantanamo remains open along with other secret prisons which torture for information. Yes they can. Soldiers will remain in Iraq, continuing the "long hard slog" Bush started, while politicians pat themselves on the back for bringing about a change (of names). Yes they can.

This is change I can believe in.

I tell you what. I will join the doe-eyed Obama Fan Club if these things happen:
1) A complete audit of every Senator and Congressman's taxes over the past 10 years by the IRS, and no less than two independent fraud and forensic accounting firms. Maybe they should ask Markopolos for a reference.
2) The immediate repeal of the Grassley-Sander amendment, making the banking system an open and fair playing field for any qualified worker.
3) The death of the Employee Free Choice act, so that unions remain a choice for workers that they can make without intimidation or fear of retribution from their coworkers. I am not anti-union, I am against forcing people to join guilds and clubs that they don't want to be a part of.
4) Stop building the wall, and use the money on real immigration reform. Go visit Mexico while you're at it. Its beautiful.
5) An expansion of Free Trade agreements, and a commitment from the US government to not subscribe to the knee-jerk protectionist reaction.
6) A full investigation into the SEC over the past 10 years, and why Madoff and Stanford only came to light during a recession while whistle blowers were screaming their heads off. I smell rats.
7) Close Guantanamo.
8) Find Bin Laden.
9) Buy the stinking puppy already. I'm tired of hearing about it on the news.

Now my pie-in-the-sky dreams:
1) Stop listening to Pelosi.
2) Relegate Biden to "Quayle/Gore" status.
3) Don't pick anyone else with skeletons in the closet for cabinet posts. Is it really that hard to get FBI background checks when you're the president???
4) The Free Trade Zone of the Americas. Eh? Eh? Anyone? Unencumbered movement of capital and labor from Canada to Panama? Eh? Eh? Aaaaaaahhhhhh, you'll get it in fifty years when the rest of the continent comes around. We'd make the European Union look like Mercosur. No? Nobody getting these trade jokes?

Edit:
In the earlier draft I wrongly referred to H-1B workers as immigrants. Not so. These are temporary non-immigrant workers. It is often used as a vehicle to stay in the States by many university graduates while they wait on their change of status.
Many interesting comments found in response to this article point that out. I, however, feel this only strengthens my argument against capping H-1B visas. Right now we want everyone to hire the most qualified for the job. If their English communication is sub-par, then fire them (as is routinely done). But many of these students passed at the head of their classes for a reason, and companies shell out lawyers fees to hire them for a reason. If you are a US citizen who thinks you deserve a position simply by the lucky fact you were born within a border, that you speak a language, or that you just "gel" better with the other US customers, then you need to rethink the American ideal. The idea was that we let competition determine who gets the rewards and the status. Not nationality, not birthright, not preference for one group over another. He who gets the results, keeps the job. If not then we might as well give up and be French.