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Subject:  Lou Dobbs: President, Congress defying people's will
Date:  Fri, 31 Mar 2006 09:43:13 -0700
da!...

Thursday, March 30, 2006 6:13 PM

Hard to believe that Dobbs would write this and even harder to believe
CNN would publish this article. However, I remain suspicious and skeptical
that this is nothing more than insincere lip service being given to
authentic Americans.  Tom

Dobbs: President, Congress defying people's will

By Lou Dobbs
CNN

CANCUN, Mexico (CNN) -- We're reporting live this week from Cancun,
where the leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada are meeting
in a trilateral summit. And despite the contentious debate raging in
the U.S. Senate over illegal immigration and the guest-worker program,
this summit has a remarkably modest agenda.

U.S. President George Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will only try to advance the discussion
among the three countries on economic integration, free trade, border
and port security, and, yes, illegal immigration.

President Bush began his summit itinerary today by spending some time
looking at the consequences of failed public policies. (Read full
story)Although he only spent a short time at the Mayan ruins at
Chichen-Itza (remember his decision not to see the Taj Mahal while in
India for talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh?), I hope it was
enough to make an impression.

The United States is challenged as never before in the global war on
radical Islamist terror. And yet, our borders and ports remain
insecure four and a half years after the 9/11 attacks. Our lack of
border and port security is nothing less than a failure of the U.S.
government and its policies. While we spend hundreds of billions of
dollars fighting the war in Iraq, we spend next to nothing to protect
our own borders.

President Bush, President Fox and Prime Minister Harper will discuss
border security in terms of the perimeter of our three nations --
regional security perimeter, if you will. Such a concept, in my
opinion, has no merit whatsoever while the United States cannot defend
its own borders.

And economic integration among the three countries? How integrated can
we be? Trade with Canada accounts for 52 percent of Canada's GDP and
we have a $50 billion trade deficit with Mexico. Remittances from
Mexican citizens living in the United States are the second -largest
source of revenue for the nation of Mexico.

The three countries, however, could not be more different
economically. Nearly 13 percent of Americans and 16 percent of
Canadians live below the poverty line, but in Mexico that figure is
conservatively 40 percent. The unemployment rate in the United States
is just below 5 percent and about 6.5 percent in Canada. While the
official unemployment rate in Mexico is 3.5 percent, the
under-employment rate is as high as 25 percent.

I find it incredibly difficult to imagine how three economies with
such disparities in economic growth, income and labor forces could
possibly integrate any time soon. But far more troubling is there has
been no popular expression of the people's will in any one of the
three countries that any such integration occur.

For that matter, in the United States, this president and Congress
seem hell bent on defying the popular will. The American people, in
poll after poll and survey after survey, are revealed to be opposed to
the direction of the war in Iraq, illegal immigration, amnesty, a
guest-worker program, the outsourcing of jobs and certainly the
outsourcing of our security. It has become increasingly clear over the
last several years that the least represented constituency in either
Congress or the White House is the middle class, working men and women
who are the foundation of our country.

And while these three leaders are meeting in Cancun, the Senate is
debating whether there should be a guest-worker program and whether
there should be amnesty for those already here. Guest worker programs
never work anywhere in the world. I firmly believe that we cannot
significantly reform our immigration policies unless we can control
immigration. And the control if immigration is impossible if our
borders remain porous and vulnerable.

One of the things that frustrates many of us who care about our
country and the truth is the rampant barrage of misinformation,
disseminated by such vociferous special interests, whether they are
ethnocentric social activists, labor unions, the Catholic Church or
Corporate America. The truth is advocates of amnesty, guest-worker
programs and open borders are unconcerned about the 280 million
American citizens, the men and women of this country who work for a
living and their families.

I hope these leaders will be far more direct and honest in their
private meetings this week. And I sincerely hope in the months ahead
they'll share that directness and honesty with the people they
represent.

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