Five Easy Pieces
BARNES, FRED
Five Easy Pieces Put the do-nothing Democratic Congress on the spot. BY FRED BARNES The story of the Democratic Congress is this: So much to do, so little done. Issues of importance are...
...But the limit on H-1B visas makes it diffi cult...
...This leads to great disparities...
...The average corporate rate for countries with signifi cant economies happens to be 25 percent...
...High tech companies, for example, need to hire foreign scientists, engineers, and programmers because there aren’t enough qualified Americans...
...nies at a severe competitive disadvantage...
...But political stunts seldom work the second time...
...That’s how the companies would make a profi t. But the new highways would be located mostly near clogged (free) highways, where drivers would benefi t from having traffi c siphoned off...
...In 2007, Microsoft was unable to hire one-third of the foreign-born workers it had jobs for, Bill Gates told Congress in March...
...The United States has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, putting American compaFred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Whoops, I forgot...
...Gates said it would be preferable if the American education system produced workers for these skilled positions, but it doesn’t...
...And a point could be made: Democrats have produced a do-nothing Congress, even spurning a series of potentially helpful, easy-to-understand proposals that wouldn’t take much time to consider...
...2) Allow nationwide purchase of health insurance...
...There’s plenty of oil out there...
...4) Lift the moratorium on offshore oil drilling...
...It might make sense for Republicans to demand these issues be brought up this year, as President Truman did in 1948 to embarrass the “do nothing 80th Congress...
...Republicans could—indeed, should—insist that fi ve simple, one-idea proposals be voted on...
...How high does the price of gasoline have to go before America wakes up and demands we explore and then drill for oil off the Atlantic and Pacifi c shores...
...The high rate also has the effect of causing companies to leave their overseas profi ts, well, overseas...
...Without more foreigners, “American companies simply will not have the talent they need to innovate and compete,” he said...
...The lid on H-1B visas is one of the most counterproductive parts of our immigration policy...
...For both national security and economic reasons, tapping the offshore oil is a necessity...
...And they’d be able to buy it on the Internet, providing further savings...
...The list of big issues is long and includes immigration, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, health care and health insurance in general, and energy...
...Increased use of mass transit has not alleviated the need for more highways...
...The Irish economy boomed, and the Irish people are on their way to having the highest standard of living in Europe...
...An unheard of $4 a gallon...
...The media probably wouldn’t give much coverage to them either...
...The alarms are largely ignored...
...Issues of importance are crying out for attention...
...Perish the thought...
...Besides, these are especially complex issues...
...Maybe the press would fi nd a hook for the story, something like: Republicans aren’t dead yet...
...5) Let the private sector build highways...
...There’s an alternative, however, that might galvanize Republicans and lift the party’s spirits...
...A single 25-year-old in New Jersey pays fi ve times as much for a standard policy as he’d pay if he lived in Kentucky...
...People should be able to get the health insurance that suits their needs,” he says...
...A nationwide market would spur competition among insurers, driving down prices and blunting the rising cost of health care generally...
...No doubt Democrats would balk...
...Reducing the rate here can have a strikingly favorable impact...
...One click...
...3) Reduce the corporate income tax from 35 percent to 25 percent...
...Here are the one-click issues, easy to deal with in a single vote: (1) Double or triple the number of foreigners given H-1B visas to work in America...
...A few years ago, Ireland cut its corporate tax rate to 12.5 percent...
...Drilling wouldn’t create unsightly views from beachfront homes of the wealthy...
...The moratorium bars drilling within 200 miles of the coast...
...But who knows...
...We need more highly educated and skilled workers from abroad, but only 65,000 H-1B visas are handed out annually...
...This causes two problems: Jobs requiring special skill or training go unfi lled, and those who might fi ll them migrate to other countries, which become more competitive at America’s expense...
...This problem could be solved by a single vote in the House and Senate boosting the number of visas to 130,000 or 195,000...
...Today, you can buy auto insurance in any state, but you can buy health insurance only in your home state...
...The diffi cult part of pushing these fi ve easy pieces is getting Democrats to hold votes...
...That makes no sense...
...It’s a point worth making...
...They’re designed to bring immediate (though partial) relief to serious problems facing the country...
...And there are hundreds of billions of dollars that private enterprises, some of them foreign, are eager to invest in fancy new roads all over America...
...Thanks to technological advances, drilling is now possible in the deep waters far offshore and is highly unlikely to produce spills...
...We’re already close to $4...
...Republican congressman John Shadegg of Arizona has long championed this common sense reform...
...Of course, these would be toll roads...
...This is a no-brainer, particularly since revenues in the Highway Trust Fund are needed to repair and renovate the Interstate Highway System, once a wonder of the world but now rundown and unable to handle the traffi c load...
Vol. 13 • June 2008 • No. 36
