What Part of Illegal Is Unclear?

New Haven, CT announced that it will make a municipal id card available to "undocumented residents." Undocumented is pc-speak for illegal. New Haven wants to give services to illegal immigrants that are paid for by tax payers.

No other crime would be ignored like this. If someone stole, they would expect to be punished. New Haven has decided to "welcome" illegal immigrants. Will it "welcome" thieves and drunk drivers too? After all, if you're going to forgive one lawbreaker why not another.

The new immigration bill is running into problems in Congress because people think its grants amnesty to lawbreakers. That law requires that illegal immigrants pay a fine, leave the country, and then return. That's called paying your debt. It's no different than a criminal being given a fine and probation. That is a workable solution. New Haven is just saying we don't care if you break federal law, we didn't pass it.

Is Fair Pay Sexist?

On the face of it, that appears to be an absurd question. How can anything fair be sexist? I'm not actually referring to "fair pay" as much as two bills known as the Fair Pay Act of 2007 and Paycheck Fairness Act. With names like those, who could be against them. The problem is they start from seriously flawed assumptions.

A recent study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that women make an average of 81% less than men do. The assumption the people behind the bills make is that the difference is due to sexism and something must be done about it.

Economist June O'Neill, who served as director of the Congressional Budget Office under President Clinton, wrote a paper explaining much of the difference. The statistic doesn't say that a woman makes 81% less than a man, it states that women make less than men. However, calculating this number involves calculating all women and all men. This is deceptive because, as Ms. O'Neil points out, women are much more likely over the course of their lives to cut back their hours or quit work altogether than men. So the percentage of women in the workforce is less than that of men. Women not in the workforce make no money, but they are counted in "all women" so this accounts for some (not all) of the difference in the figures. Women are also 40% more likely to work part-time than men are. This affects the difference as well.

O'Neil, as well as numerous other economists, also stipulate that women tend to take jobs that pay less. This is not to say that they are doing the same work for less money, but as Senator Tom Harkin, who authored the bill, has said social workers (mostly female) make less than probation officers (mostly male), "even though both jobs require similar levels of skill, effort and responsibility." However, that is not sexist. Sexism would be if a women decided to be a probation officer and was told she couldn't because she was a woman. Sexism is not not two different jobs make different salaries but women prefer to do the job that pays less.

The assumption at this point becomes, women don't know any better so the government must help them. That's sexist.

Let's Hear It For Congressional Hypocrisy

Congressman William Jefferson, the Democratic representative from Louisiana, was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, money-laundering and soliciting more than $400,000 in bribes in a long-running investigation into business deals he tried to broker in Africa. He is the first sitting congressman to face charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits corporate bribery overseas. The indictment is as large as a phone book. Was this arrest the result of Congress' much vaunted stance on restoring ethics?

No.

This was the result of an 18-month FBI investigation, in which Jefferson alleged the FBI was not allowed to utilize a lawfully-obtained search warrant on his office because he is a Congressman. Several others in Congress have backed this assertion.

Their claim is that they can't be investigated because it was an unconstitutional intrusion on the lawmaking process. That's a nice way of saying, "we make the laws, we don't have to obey them."