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July 19, 2004

Virgil Goode: Embracing The Hate

Just caught 5th District Congressman Virgil Goode on C-SPAN.

Here's a news flash: The federal budget deficit is caused by--hold on to your hats--illegal immigration.

That's right. The Bush tax-cuts-for-the-rich, spend-til-you're-broke doctrine hasn't had anything to do with the record budget deficit created in the last three and a half years.

Oh, and 9/11? Not caused by terrorism. That's right. Illegal immigration.

Since his election to Congress, Goode has become the poster child for national anti-immigration efforts. He appears to be obsessed not with the overarching needs of the people in the 5th District, where I lived for 13 years, but with making sure this country's borders are closed for good. He is even sponsor of a bill to ban legal immigration--which begs the question: Who will pull the tobacco in Southside Virginia if we don't allow in the legal migrant workers who have labored in the tobacco fields for years during each growing season?

In 2002, Goode's re-election ads showed him standing in front of empty factories shaking his fist in the air. One wonders where halting immigration and putting military police on our borders fits in when it comes to the needs of the people of the 5th District--needs for jobs, adequate health care, a transition from the manufacturing economy. Standing in front of an empty factory shaking your fist in the air never created one single job or provided one single family with health care or put one textbook in the hands of a young student.

Goode's president has neglected the needs of Southside Virginia--even slashing funding for the helpful manufacturing extension partnership program that supports companies that create and sustain manufacturing jobs. He hasn't been able to get the attention of the president, who opposes a common-sense buyout for tobacco growers. One has to wonder: This is leadership?

Thankfully, the people in the 5th have a choice in November. A choice between a candidate, Al Weed, who will represent the heart and soul of the 5th--and an incumbent with a distorted agenda that would send our Statue of Liberty back where she came from.

Posted by laura at July 19, 2004 09:32 PM

Comments

Is anyone at all suprised about this? I mean seriously, the Republican message is such:

Be afraid that something is going to happen to shake America. But go about your everyday lives cause there is no specific threat.

The economy is doing great, and your new job at Wal-Mart can almost help pay the rent.

If your not with us, your against us and we will then invade your privacy, especially the books you read and who you are sleeping with.

And my favorite level of hypocrisy -- Speak out against all those jobs going overseas, but then support outsourcing and the Presidents goal to send as many good paying jobs overseas as possible....

Posted by: Dominic at July 20, 2004 10:58 AM

How about some facts about the contribution of immigrants to Virginia's economy? A recent analysis of the labor market statistics in the 2000 Census data that was prepared for the National Business Roundtable in Washington, DC, estimated that 44% of male workers entering Virginia's workforce in the 1990s were immigrants and that the "[t]he national jobs boom of the 1990s clearly would not have been possible in the absence of these new record waves of immigrant workers, especially men. The Great American Job Machine was largely fueled by new immigrant labor, a finding that has received insufficient attention from most economic and labor market analysts." The Business Roundtable analysis also showed that "[I]mmigrant workers, especially new immigrants, are over-represented in blue-collar occupations, service occupations, and farm/forestry/fishing jobs." The full Business Roundtable report may be downloaded at http://www.brtable.org/pdf/781.pdf.
UCLA's North American Integration and Development Center reported in 2001 that undocumented workers contribute more than $300 billion to the economy annually. These workers make substantial contributions in the agriculture, building and construction and hospitality industries -- all of which are important sectors of Virginia's economy.

Posted by: CG2 at July 21, 2004 09:20 PM