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2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: So Bernie, what was your 2007 vote against the immigration reform bill really about? [View all]Jarqui
(10,119 posts)21. T'm tired of this BS - another deception brought to us by the Clintons
Here are four pdf links to the congressional record in June 2007 when they were debating this:
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-25/pdf/CREC-2007-06-25-pt1-PgS8337.pdf#page=2
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-07/pdf/CREC-2007-06-07-pt1-PgS7271-6.pdf#page=11
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-07/pdf/CREC-2007-06-07-pt1-PgS7271-6.pdf#page=13
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2007-06-07/pdf/CREC-2007-06-07-pt1-PgS7271-6.pdf#page=14
Bernie said a lot on the floor of the Senate. String search for Sanders in those documents to read it all. It's in a few places - at least two major speeches. Once again, Bernie is telling the truth. Hillary is not. Here are some excerpts:
As I think we all know, this is a long and complicated bill. An important part of this bill deals with illegal immigration --how do we make sure we stop the flow of illegal immigrants into this country; how do we finally begin to deal with employers who are knowingly hiring illegal immigrants; what do we do with 12 million people who are in this country who, in my view, we are not going to simply, in the middle of the night, throw out of this country. These are difficult and important issues.
On those issues I am in general agreement with the thrust of this legislation. But, Mr. President, I wish to tell you there are areas in this bill where I have strong disagreement, and one is the issue of legal immigration , what we are doing in terms of bringing people into this country who, in my view, will end up lowering wages for American workers right now.
Here's one part where it gets "good". Who can name the corporation Hillary sat on the board of directors for? I'll let Bernie name them and why:
The argument there is Americans don't want to do the work. They say: We can't find American workers to do the work. That is a crock, in many instances. It is not true. One of the groups that has come to Congress to tell us how much they are concerned about the need to find workers because they can't find Americans to do the jobs is our old friends at Wal-Mart.
As many Americans know, Wal-Mart pays low wages. They often hire people for 30 hours a week rather than 40 hours a week, and they provide minimal health care benefits. Yet Wal-Mart has come in and said: Well, we can't find the workers. Bring us in more low-wage workers.
Well, guess what. Two years ago, when Wal-Mart announced the opening of a new store in Oakland, CA, guess how many people showed up for that job in Oakland, CA, at a Wal-Mart. Eleven thousand people showed up--11,000 people showed up in Oakland--filled out applications for a job when only 400 jobs were available. Eleven thousand people for 400 jobs.
Wal-Mart says they need more low-wage workers coming in from around the world because they can't find workers. Well, that was a couple of years ago. So you might say: Well, that doesn't happen today. In January of 2006, when Wal-Mart announced the opening of a store in Evergreen Park, just outside of Chicago, in your home State, Mr. President, 24,500 people applied for 2,325 jobs. Yet Wal-Mart and their friends are coming in here saying we can't find Americans who want to work.
Let us be clear. Wal-Mart does not provide good wages, does not provide good benefits, does not provide good health care,
How do you like them apples? In 2007, "Wal-Mart" had been lobbying to bring in cheap labor and their ex-board of director is all for it. And it's screwing up the immigration bill that Sanders would have otherwise voted for but they won't drop it. Could this have something to do with it?
Disclosures to the Federal Election Committee reveal how lobbyists for Wal-Mart, Chevron, Facebook and Goldman Sachs have been acting as fundraising captains for Clinton
See how that works?
Hillary was there for the vote. She heard where Bernie stood, that he supported much of the legislation and why he couldn't vote for it - for what Walmart was up to. So what does Hillary do in this campaign? Turns it around, deceptively spinning it that Bernie was against Latinos - while she had sold out American workers for her Walmart bundling. And it's no joke because this garbage is all over Nevada taking votes from Bernie.
I do not know how you Clinton supporters sleep at night. This is not a nice, ethical woman. She's deceitful, ruthless and doesn't care who gets thrown under the bus.
In essence, this bill didn't die because of people hating Latinos. It died because folks wouldn't go along with the corporate greed - it was too much and too obvious.
Bernie goes on later in his speech
Many of the largest corporations in this country are supporting this legislation. And you know why? It is not because they are staying up late at night worrying about some Mexican kid in Detroit or Chicago and what will be the future of that kid. They are not worrying about that. What they want to see is a continued influx into this country of cheap labor. They are not content with outsourcing millions of good-paying jobs. They are not content with fighting against working people who want to form unions. They are not content with their opposition, successful until recently, of keeping the minimum wage at $5.15 an hour for 10 years. That is not good enough. Now they are saying: Gee, we can't move Wal-Mart from America to China, we can't move hotels to China, we can't move restaurants to China, so what is the best way to continue keeping wages low for those workers?
....
Reclaiming my time, Mr. President, the Senator makes an important point, and that is we have all been educated that economics is about supply and demand. If you don't get the workers you want, you raise wages and you raise benefits. You don't simply open the door and bring in other workers at low wages.
I sure don't have a problem with those words. They were right in 2007 and they're still true today.
The next day, Bernie rises to propose an amendment. He hasn't given up on the bill. He's trying to solve the problem so he can vote for it.
In a moment, I want to talk about an amendment I will be offering with Senator Grassley to the immigration reform bill. That is amendment No. 1332. I should mention this amendment has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO. It was endorsed by the Programmers Guild and by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
...
This bill also carves out a path to citizenship which, frankly, is the right thing to do. But also what this bill does not do is analyze effectively the impact of various aspects of this legislation--the guest worker program, H-1B program--on the lives of American workers. The basic premise under which this bill operates in those areas is a false one. ...
...
What I fear the most is if we keep going in the direction in which we are moving now economically, what we are going to see is our children are going to have a lower standard of living than we do. In fact, according to a recent joint study by the Pew Charitable Trust and Brookings Institute, men in their thirties earned on average 12 percent less in 2004 than their fathers did in 1974, after adjusting for inflation. Incredibly, men today are earning less than their fathers did despite a huge explosion in technology and worker productivity.
...
During the debate over NAFTA and permanent normal trade relations with China--which I participated in as a Member of the House of Representatives--we were told by all the corporate interests who pushed that legislation on the Congress not to worry about the blue-collar jobs we would lose. I remember it distinctly. They said: Well, yes, it is true. If we open up our markets, yes, it is true we are going to lose a lot of these factory jobs. They are going to go to China, Mexico, whatever. But don't worry because if your kid does well in school, becomes computer proficient, your kid is going to have a great job out there at good wages. That is the future of America. Don't worry about the blue-color jobs. You have all these white-color information technology jobs.
Well, guess what is happening. From January of 2001 to January of 2006, we have lost 644,000 information sector jobs. Alan Blinder, the former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has told us between 30 and 40 million jobs in this country are in danger of being shipped overseas.
---
What upsets me is how our young people feel about this situation. These are kids who go to schoolsometimes they borrow a lot of money to go to collegethey work hard, and what
they are looking forward to, whether through a BA or a BS or an MA or a Ph.D., is a good, secure, challenging, meaningful job with a decent income. What they are seeing is companies saying: We do not want you. We want somebody from abroad who will work at lower wages than you. I think that must be very discouraging for so many of our young people.
Madam President, the amendment I am offering today, along with Senator GRASSLEY, is a pretty simple amendment. What it would do is it would prohibit companies that have announced mass layoffs from receiving new visas of any kind, unless these companies could prove that overall employment at their companies would not be reduced by these layoffs. In other words, we are calling their bluff, and we are saying: You cant lay off large numbers of American workers and then tell us you desperately need workers, professionals from abroad. Those companies which are truly experiencing labor shortages would not be impacted by this amendment and could continue to receive increases in foreign workers, but companies that are reducing their U.S. workforce by laying off thousands of Americans would be prevented from importing workers from abroad. The bottom line is, the companies that are laying off thousands of Americans shouldnt be allowed to import workers from overseas. Let us stand up for the American people. Let us stand up for American workers. Let us support
this amendment.
Here's his amendment. They ignored it - didn't even vote on it:
https://www.congress.gov/amendment/110th-congress/senate-amendment/1332/actions
Someone else made this comment:
Three weeks before we had the final vote and Senator Reid pulled it down, after the debate continued a couple of weeks ago, a Rasmussen poll showed support for the bill in the high 20s. Then fell to 23 percent, and the last poll showed only 20 percent of Americans supported this bill. Only 20 percent of the American people said we should pass this bill.
In spite of all that, the bill fell just a few votes short.
I see crap like this and start to wonder about Trump if Hillary wins. If Hillary wins Nevada tonight, it will be in significant part because the people of Nevada got hammered with this deception to steal votes. Sanders made himself crystal clear what they were up to in 2007. It is beyond debate.
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So Bernie, what was your 2007 vote against the immigration reform bill really about? [View all]
bigtree
Feb 2016
OP
of course, the latter was their opinion which Sanders leveraged for his later explanation
bigtree
Feb 2016
#10
That's funny, O'Malley disagreed with your take on Hillary and immigration:
beam me up scottie
Feb 2016
#15
Pathetic. Obviously he could have had more than one reason for voting against it.
Vattel
Feb 2016
#11
Then if you think his vote was WRONG, then I conclude that you LOVE slave labor for foreign workers!
cascadiance
Feb 2016
#33
Well, you and SOME of them may accusations of Bernie against immigration reform based on that vote!
cascadiance
Feb 2016
#35
The article tried to posit that Bernie CHANGED his story about guest worker programs...
cascadiance
Feb 2016
#38
Look, I do believe that we ALL want immigration reform. Hillary folk, stop trying to divide us!
cascadiance
Feb 2016
#40
Tell me what you think it's about. Do you really believe Sanders is a racist?
DisgustipatedinCA
Feb 2016
#24
No, I'm not alerting on anything, and of course you don't have to answer. But...
DisgustipatedinCA
Feb 2016
#29
It was probably about what some republican attached to what was an otherwise good bill.
cherokeeprogressive
Feb 2016
#31