Lou Barletta Makes Jobs Priority

By Joe Guzzardi

On Election Day, Pennsylvanians will face an important moment of truth in the race for U.S. Senate. Voters will choose between the ineffectual two-term Democratic incumbent Bob Casey or his Republican U.S. House of Representatives challenger, four-term Lou Barletta.

Campaigns for high office feature embellished achievements and lofty promises for what the candidates will accomplish for their constituents. Forget the bluster. Look instead at the congressional voting records of Casey and Barletta. They reveal everything that Pennsylvanians need to know, the bad for Casey; the good for Barletta.

Casey portrays himself as a defender of American workers. But his voting pattern consistently proves that Casey has no interest in American workers’ well-being, but instead prefers to replace hard-working Americans with overseas workers via various employment-based visas, and amnesties that would provide the recipients with employment authorization documents. Visa holders and amnestied immigrants can then enter the U.S. labor market and compete head-to-head in a tough job environment with American citizens.

This year, Casey voted in favor of two separate amendments – one introduced by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Susan Collins (R-ME), Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Angus King (I-ME), and the second by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Chris Coons (D-DE) – that would have granted amnesties to millions of illegally present immigrants.

In 2015, 2017 and again this year, Casey voted to increase the H-2B guest worker totals. The H-2B is a nonagriculture, temporary visa designed for seasonal employers and is used in landscaping, the leisure industry and other businesses for jobs that American teens and college students historically sought out to earn college tuition money.

On border and interior enforcement, Casey has a poor record. In 2015, during the unprecedented Central American border surge, Casey voted against an amendment that called for the expedited removal of Salvadoran, Guatemalan and Honduran aliens who are now, presumably, living in the U.S. interior and unlikely ever to go home. Casey also voted against fellow Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey’s bill to defund sanctuary cities, municipalities that refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs officials, and instead release convicted criminal aliens back into local communities.

Compare Casey’s disappointing record on subverting American workers, leaving America’s border and interior vulnerable, and endorsing the release of violent criminal aliens to Barletta’s.

During the current Congress, Barletta voted four times to mandate E-Verify, the federal program that ensures every new employee is legally authorized to work in the U.S. Barletta cosponsored four bills, and voted in favor of two other bills, that would have defunded sanctuary cities.

Moreover, Barletta cosponsored legislation that would reduce amnesties, control border surges, end asylum fraud and close loopholes in asylum claims. Asylum fraud is a grave concern to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Importantly, after asylees win their case or 180 days pass without a decision, they automatically become work authorized.

As for which candidate is the tougher fighter, remember that in 2006, as Hazleton’s mayor, Barletta stood up to the ACLU and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense fund when they challenged his Illegal Immigration Relief Act that allowed the city to deny business permits to employers who hire illegal immigrants and gave the city authority to fine landlords up to $1,000 for renting to illegal immigrants.

A Federal District Court, and then a U.S. Appeals court, ruled against Barletta, shameless judicial activism run amok. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court did not take up the case, and Hazelton had to reimburse the ACLU $1.4 million, despite that aiding and abetting illegal immigrants – hiring and providing shelter to them – is a federal felony.

On Nov. 6, American voters will decide whether to reward obstructionist, expansionist, ultra-liberals like Casey with another undeserved six years or send pro-U.S. worker, pro-American values candidates like Barletta to the U.S. Senate. The nation’s future hangs in the balance.

Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated, Pittsburgh-based columnist who has written about government for more than 30 years. Contact Joe at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

 

 

Tom Wolf Immoral Approach To Poverty

By Lowman S. Henry

Among the flurry of bills passed at the end of the legislative session in October was one that established a pathway to prosperity for hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians. This opportunity to escape from the plantation of poverty has been shattered by Governor Tom Wolf who vetoed the bill out of fidelity to an immoral belief in perpetual government dependency.

At issue is a requirement for healthy, adult Medicaid recipients without children to find part-time work or participate in job training programs to continue receiving benefits. The goal is to help able-bodied, able-minded adults receive the job training and placement assistance they need to enter or re-enter the work force.

This policy has many benefits. First and foremost it restores financial independence to individuals and helps them gain control over their own lives. As Nathan Benefield of the Commonwealth Foundation explained “work is the most effective way to alleviate poverty.” Government programs, as evidenced by the failed decades-long “war on poverty,” trap people in perpetual dependency rather than foster financial freedom.

Other states, notably Kentucky, Indiana and Arkansas, have received approval from the federal government allowing them to implement Medicaid work requirements. The Commonwealth Foundation points out 17 states have adopted laws requiring able-bodied adults without dependents to work part-time or volunteer part-time to continue receiving food stamps. As a result, program participants in Kansas saw their incomes rise by 127 percent and in Maine food stamp recipients were able to exit the program after their incomes more than doubled.

This would be an especially opportune time for implementing work requirements. Due to the surging Trump economy employers are having a difficult time finding workers to fill available jobs. The Lincoln Institute’s recent Keystone Business Climate Survey found 49% of state businesses have open positions and 28% saying they are having significant difficulty finding qualified employees. So a Medicaid work/job training requirement would have the dual benefit of helping individuals prepare for and find work while supplying employers with workers to fill open positions.

Additionally, moving able-bodied adults into the workforce would then allow the commonwealth to target available resources to those most in need. The bill vetoed by Governor Wolf would actually have prioritized Medicaid funding for children, seniors and for individuals with disabilities. By reducing the number of people on Medicaid it also would have helped ensure adequate funding of the program for years to come.

Given the obvious benefits of this policy why did it end with a Governor Wolf veto? Part of it is politics: Democrats count on the votes of those dependent on social welfare programs. The party’s messaging this election year has been built on scare mongering over health care. The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, has been an abysmal failure that has resulted in skyrocketing premiums, fewer insurance options, and reduced patient health care choices. Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a system that actually works has become fodder for endless demagoguery by Democrat candidates.

And then there is the continued adherence to a failed ideology by Tom Wolf and his fellow believers in the welfare state. As Arthur Books, President of the American Enterprise Institute so aptly put it in his book The Conservative Heart:

“They treat work as punishment, view struggling people as liabilities to manage, and focus on unequal distribution of incomes instead of unequal and insufficient opportunities. As a result, progressive politicians try to help the poor with government redistribution programs that frequently exacerbate the problem. These intrusions lower opportunity, reduce ability to create actual private sector work, leave more people dependent on the state, and effectively split the country into two Americas even more quickly.”

Brooks concludes: “They have made the poor worse off and that is immoral.”

And so it is.

Lowman S. Henry is Chairman CEO of the Lincoln Institute and host of the weekly Lincoln Radio Journal.

Tom Wolf Immoral Approach To Poverty