Besides the Money We Don't Have...

Bailout, Bailout, Bailout. There seems to be nothing else for the national media to talk about, including the details of the two massive spending packages. So here I am to shed some light on a little talked about and very scary part of the latest bill.

At issue is a stipulation that no company receiving government funds hire foreign workers. The law forbids companies from hiring workers with H1-B Visas (yes, that means educated foreigners with at least a bachelors degree). This bill has companies like Bank of America rescinding offers to perfectly capable and eager individuals who could have the ability to steer the company into safer waters. The Department of Labor has never had a problem with companies hiring people with these visas, so why does Congress? It's wrong to take jobs away from anyone, and an administration that ostensibly wants to correct our reputation with the rest of the world has taken a huge step back with this nationalistic stipulation that does nothing to stimulate our economy. Limiting a talent pool to the people who failed before is no way to turn a country around.

One of my favorite aspects of this "Employ American Workers Act" (besides a name that sounds like a job creating mechanism rather than one that denies qualified humans jobs) is that it was sponsored by Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). In case you hadn't heard, Senator Grassley suggested this week that AIG executives (who took over a million each in bonuses from a company taking TARP money) should either "resign or commit suicide." So, Senator Grassley, you believe that only American executives should be hired but you also recommend digging a mass grave for over seventy who have failed? Where will we find enough MBA's to replace them? About a quarter of the graduate and post-graduate students at Harvard are international students, so I suppose the only way to properly guarantee jobs only going to Americans is to give American students a leg up in the admissions process at such internationally acclaimed American universities. For a country built on, and formerly known for, diversity this is a slippery slope that we are currently sliding down.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in Americans having every chance at jobs in America. But we are removing the level playing field that the Department of Labor allows and replacing it with an extreme uphill battle for diversity and progress. The bill does nothing to ensure that factory workers or any other blue collar jobs are more dutifully protected. It, in effect, makes sure that those executives displaced from failing enterprises can get jobs elsewhere, unless they themselves happen to be on H1-B visas, with lessened competition from foreign applicants.

The last time the United States took an isolationist stance, it didn't go so well. Last time the United States decided to act against the advice of foreign nations, it didn't go so well (at least in the public opinion realm). So why are we excluding these foreign voices at a time of crisis? It's just more head-in-the-sand nationalistic arrogance that this country can't afford.