Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Build a wall or restore the draft? @realDonaldTrump

Donald Trump is promising to build a wall to stop the flow of immigrants who are taking away American jobs and terrorizing our nation. What happens if we build the wall and it does not work? 

Illegal immigrants may find ways around the wall by air, sea, and tunnels. They could also take jobs that no one else would want. The immigrants who are willing to take these risks and work this hard are the ones who are most likely to take American jobs. Illegal immigrant children may go to other countries where there are less barriers. They may also choose to stay in their country.  But, children immigrants pose no threat to taking American jobs.

People need to tease out the reasons for building a wall in the first place. We have gone from one income families to two income families. We are beginning to sacrifice time to work three jobs and incomes. It may come to a transition for both husband and wife to work four jobs. This difficult transition represents our response to a lower standard of living. Our income is currently not meeting our standard of living. The squeezed out priority to maintain this standard of living is too often attention to our children. People are unhappy about neglecting their children, so they are voting for Trump.  

Higher pay American jobs may have been lost for other reasons than illegal immigrants. The workforce needs people who have high levels of technical skill training. Many of these skills can be acquired by employing people Online in countries with a lower standard of living. Some companies have also recruited immigrants to come from other countries to work for them. The need for technical skills will continue to drive immigration.

So, instead of building a wall there are other simple alternatives. A Democratic Party solution could be to revive depression era programs like the W.P.A. A Republican Party solution might be to require military service for two years where people can receive intensive technical training. These are easy solutions to the complex problem of illegal immigration which goes deeper than just building a wall.

I am sure that if Mr. Trump began talking about restoring the military draft and using it to retrain the workforce that his solution would not be very popular. However, if we are going to pursue a simple solution to a complicated problem this is one way for it to work. Is this the end game Mr Trump?