Clarice F
This week the same press which has consistently lied about Trump confected a split between the DOGE team and Trump.I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember the musical Brigadoon. It was about a Scottish village that disappears in the mists and only reappears once every hundred years. The District of Columbia and its federal components often remind me of that. On a local level (perhaps a tradition from pre-air conditioning days) the place is somnolent for all practical purposes in the summer and even through much of the spring. Then, just before Thanksgiving, the courts suddenly schedule hearings on cases that have been moldering for months in the clerks’ offices and Congress starts to hustle to get a continuing resolution — to cover what should have been resolved months earlier — before the Christmas recess. Past the miasma of the damp hot weather, the city once again is animated.
One hundred years ago Republican Calvin Coolidge was serving out his first term in office. He was known for being anti-corruption, a proponent of small government and racial equality, and held office during the “Roaring Twenties,” a period of vast economic growth.
One hundred years later, the nation overwhelmingly elected Donald J. Trump for a second term of office — broken only by a suspicious election of Joe Biden who has proved a disaster in every conceivable sense. Biden’s running mate sought the presidency upon Biden’s decision (was it really his?) not to seek a second term, and she was roundly beaten at the polls.
Like Coolidge, Trump campaigned on a marked reduction of the federal government and fiscal restraint. To aid him in reducing the size of the federal government and rein in unnecessary spending, he has tapped two very successful entrepreneurs — Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk — to create DOGE, a panel to examine government operations and recommend changes and needed cuts. This week the same press which has consistently lied about Trump confected a split between the DOGE team and Trump. The issue is H-1B visas, temporary visas offered to those with needed skills. Those imagining a split say that Vivek and Elon’s support for the program conflicts with Trump’s America First policies. It doesn’t. Yes, their contentions rile the fringes — the nativists who want no immigration and the open borders types who think it is elitist to give preference to skilled immigrants.
Perhaps because we are just emerging from a deep sleep where nonsensical arguments and policies were given wide credence, the debate is sloppy and uninformed. Let me try to clarify and show why, despite abuses of the program, the H-1B visa program is perfectly consistent with Trump’s stated policies.
The very best statement of the relevant facts and the opportunities that abound to resolve any questions about the program is by Kaizen D. Asiedu, who graduated with a degree in philosophy from Harvard when that still meant something and has won an Emmy, a man of many talents. He thoughtfully explains all this in a video, captioned for those like me, who prefer reading to viewing.
If you haven’t the patience for watching, here he is in short form:
55% of billion dollar+ tech companies were started by immigrants. Google + Intel + Tesla were all founded or built by immigrants. They employ 400,000+ people collectively. Percentage of workforce allowed to be H-1B is effectively capped at 15% for big tech companies. The other 85%+ is American. At Google only 5% of the workforce was H-1B renewals or petitions in 2023. The U.S. is 12/37 among first-world (OECD) nations in science. 28/37 in math. 400,000 new engineers are needed every year. A third of positions go unfilled. Short-term, we need foreign reinforcements or we will lose. Long-term, we need to improve the home team.
I understand the concern of those who feel this program displaces American workers. I have no reason to question this analysis by Grok, X’s AI search engine:
“From the information available, approximately 6% of the new jobs added by S&P 100 companies in the U.S. since 2021 went to white males. This translates to about 20,524 white males out of a total of 323,094 new jobs added during that period.”
I suppose this is the result of DEI policies and a reflection of the growth of non-production jobs like advertising DEI programs, public relations, and Human Resources, but it lends credence to those who feel that American workers, particularly white males, are being discriminated against. Moreover, there’s some anecdotal evidence that cost-cutting and cronyism, more specifically, preference in H-1B program management, plays a role, and investigation and reform in the program, if true, is certainly warranted.
It’s also undeniably true that in recent decades the quality of education, both K-12 and collegiate, have gone downhill, and the incoming administration will need to address that. But that will take time to ameliorate, and the nation cannot afford to limp along with mediocre innovations until then.
<img alt captext="Clarice F” class=”post-image-right” src=”https://conservativenewsbriefing.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/the-capital-is-like-brigadoon.jpg” width=”350″>We still have the cultural atmosphere to thrive, even if we are lagging in enough qualified candidates to perform the necessary work. I’m struck by this post by Cesar A. Hidalgo, who entered the U.S. from France, was an H-1B visa holder and is now a citizen who has his own company. He explains why top scientists seek out work in the U.S — it’s a culture that encourages innovative thinking:
America is a land[of] opportunity in big part because it has a fantastic work culture that values things such as relevance, communication, and simplicity. In X, international comparisons of work culture often veer into formal things like maternity leave. But as someone that has worked in a few countries, I am convinced that many subtle things, such as knowing how to take turns during a meeting, or responding to an email quickly, can go a long way. In many countries, work is an overregulated bureaucratic nightmare. American culture can be extremely refreshing for foreigners who know what it means to battle unnecessary processes and rules. But there is more. The US work culture is also open and optimistic. Most countries suffer from “well intentioned” cronyism, where people hire, associate, and promote others based on personal relationships. This certainly happens to some degree in the United States, but less than in other places. That openness, however, is key for providing opportunities for outsiders with more skills than networks. Also, many countries [have] pessimistic work cultures, where people shoot others down as a way to flex their wit. But as Nat Friedman said, “Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.” American can-do attitude is a valuable intangible that is prevalent in the US. Now, to the point of this post, these aspects of American work culture are great complements for skilled foreign workers. Complements that favor America. America’s open work culture, with its emphasis on communication skills and optimism, is amazing for organizing teams. Skilled foreigners perform better in teams with an American work culture than in teams of bureaucratized pessimists that don’t know how to take turns during a meeting. When those surviving in those more hostile work environments move to America, they can unleash their technical skills in relevant problems within optimistic organizational cultures that are rare back home. [snip] America benefits from this complement. The fact that every year we get the first pick on the draft is a key competitive advantage. Sure, we do not always know if the first pick of the draft will turn out great, but getting the first pick of the draft is not something we want to lose. We should double down on what makes America exceptional.
In the end, I think these temporary work visas for people with exceptional and needed skills will continue, abuses of the program will be investigated and addressed, and in the long term greater progress will be made on improving the technical skills of American students. Indeed, on Saturday Trump reiterated his support of the H-1B program, saying:“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” he said. “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
In the meantime, the administrative state keeps botching up. The absurdly onerous Beneficial Ownership Information filing requirement is on again, off again. The reports were due to be filed on December 31 with substantial penalties for late filing; a federal district court enjoined the requirement and stayed the deadline. The IRS said they’d halt enforcement until there was a definitive court ruling, but the Department of Justice appealed the injunction and the Fifth Circuit agreed to their request for a stay of the injunction; the IRS then reinstated the deadline moving it to January 13, but the Fifth Circuit lifted the stay so the original injunction is now back in effect. A nightmare for small businesses, their accountants, and lawyers.
For those of us who think the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kelo was the worst SCOTUS ruling in our lifetimes, there’s a possibility that the Court may overturn or limit its application.
The case involved a New York jurisdiction that took the land from one developer who wished to turn it into a parking lot and handed it to another for the same purpose.
Bowers’ petition presents the Supreme Court with two options. It can put some teeth in Kennedy’s supposed limitation by ruling that “the Public Use Clause require[s] something more than minimal rational-basis review when the government takes land from one private owner to give it to a specifically identified private owner outside the context of a comprehensive economic redevelopment plan.” Or it can overturn Kelo, an outcome that at least four justices — Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Samuel Alito — seem inclined to favor.
“The most natural reading” of the Public Use Clause, Thomas argued in his own Kelo dissent, “is that it allows the government to take property only if the government owns, or the public has the legal right to use, the property, as opposed to taking it for any public purpose or necessity whatsoever.” As Bowers’ petition notes, “Justice Thomas’s careful, heavily cited discussion of the original text and meaning went unanswered by the majority.” [snip]
The Kelo dissenters were right about the decision’s practical consequences as well as its reasoning, the petition argues. “The Kelo rule has… proven unworkable because, as illustrated by the perfunctory analysis conducted by the lower court in this case, it is no rule at all,” the Institute for Justice says. “Instead, it replaces the enumerated public-use requirement with a standard that allows the government to decide for itself what public use means.”
The petition notes that 47 states have responded to Kelo with laws that “make private-to-private transfers more difficult.” But as George Mason law professor Ilya Somin noted on the 15th anniversary of Kelo, “much of the new legislation was largely ineffective.” [snip]
Although Bowers’ case pits one developer against another with more political influence, eminent domain cases often involve people of modest means who are outmatched by the resources of developers who covet their land. “Redevelopment through eminent domain overwhelmingly targets areas disproportionately populated by poor people and racial minorities,” the petition notes.
“This Court may not see public-use questions very often, but that is to be expected,” the Institute for Justice says. “Litigating about public use can be expensive and risky for property owners, who face great pressure to settle. The Court should not mistake the relative rarity of petitions raising these questions for an absence of eminent-domain abuse. In the lower courts (and at dinner tables where homeowners have to decide whether to litigate or to let private businesses force them off their land), Kelo continues to run rampant.”
Reversing Kelo, hamstringing an inconsistent federal bureaucracy while paring it back to essentials, and keeping in place a program which allows us to benefit from the best scientists while protecting Americans from misuse of the valuable H-1B program would be great steps for the coming New Year, a year in which I wish you all health and happiness.
