peacefare.net

Four more bad reasons to vote Trump

I somehow managed yesterday in citing ten reasons to vote for Trump to skip an obvious one: immigration. It merited mention, not least because it a very bad reason to be voting for Trump.

We need the labor

The United States needs more immigrants, not fewer. The tight labor market is driving up wages and productivity. That is welcome after many years that they lagged the increase in returns to capital. Incomes have been rising faster than prices since the epidemic. But there are limits. The US fertility rate (average number of children per woman over a lifetime) is down to 1.6. This is insufficient to sustain a stable population size. The resulting aging of the population increases the demands on Social Security and Medicare while decreasing their revenue streams.

Immigration can help to alleviate these problems. Immigrants to the US are younger on average and have more children than people born in the US. They help to pay the bills of those reaching retirement age, also relieving labor market pressure.

We need the entrepreneurs and executives

Immigrants are also disproportionately entrepreneurs. They do not on the whole take jobs from native-born Americans but create jobs for everyone:

…immigrants act more as “job creators” than “job takers” and play outsized roles in US high-growth entrepreneurship.

This is important, as US economic growth depends heavily on new, small companies. And small companies grow. Immigrants founded nearly 45% of the Fortune 500.

It is of course also true that immigrants play important roles in managing major corporations. The tech sector is rife with immigrant executives. Eighty per cent of privately held billion dollar companies have immigrants in a senior role. The American economy today depends on immigrant managers.

Getting rid of them isn’t possible

The Obama and Biden Administrations focused deportation on people who posed security risks. The Trump Administration did not have clear priorities. Biden has removed (often by expulsion rather than deportation) many more immigrants than Trump did.

That doesn’t mean Trump isn’t going to try to do what he said he would do. He has pledged to round up and expel millions. Trump’s effort would cost many billions and involve hiring ten thousand new immigration officials.

Even beginning that process will unleash chaos in the American economy, further tighten the labor market. It will also discourage immigration that we need for the purposes cited above. Trump’s election will slam down an economy that is landing softly.

There is a bipartisan solution already drafted that Trump won’t support

Republicans and Democrats have already agreed to a bipartisan immigration bill. Trump blocked its approval in the Congress. But the new Congress can revive the plan and pass it. Harris has pledged to sign it.

If elected, Trump will need to insist on something “better.” He is unlikely to get it if the Democrats control one of the Houses. Only Harris guarantees that immigration will be dealt with quickly on a bipartisan basis in the new Congress.

I could go on. World population growth is also slowing markedly. There soon won’t be as many people wanting to immigrate anywhere than there once were. Trump’s anti-immigrant efforts will encourage people to go elsewhere. That will not be good for a country that depends heavily on immigrant labor, entrepreneurs, and executives. We’d be well-advised to forget Trump’s grandiose plans and grab the bipartisan solution.