Notes on the US midterm elections

Wednesday, 03 November 2010 02:54

Written by Marvin Bionat

According to the last pre-election survey conducted by the ABC News/Washington Post Poll, when asked: “Overall, which party—the Democrats or the Republicans—do you trust to do a better job in coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years?”, registered voters gave the Democrats an edge with 45%, compared to 40% for the GOP. Clearly, that doesn’t jibe with the widespread expectation that administration candidates will be routed by the Republicans. Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the outcome of the elections will be decided by those who actually go to the polls and vote. Among likely voters, the same poll showed the GOP edging the Democrats, 45 to 41. A Republican gain of 50 to 70 seats is bandied about by pundits. That means the House of Representatives, possibly even the Senate, will soon be ceded to the Republicans, because not enough Democratic voters have the enthusiasm to go out and vote.

Central to the midterm elections is the state of the economy. More than a year after the Great Recession officially ended, the employment rate is still close to 10%. While the economy is recovering, growth and economic activity have not been enough to fill the huge jobs gap. It does not matter that the Obama administration managed to reverse the steep downward trajectory of the massive economic crisis that it inherited and to actually stimulate more than a year of growth. People want to see more tangible results.

A new study by the Pew Hispanic Center shows an interesting facet to the anemic recovery. Between June 2009 and June 2010, the study reveals that while the unemployment rate among native-born workers rose from 9.2% to 9.7%, the unemployment rate among immigrant workers actually dropped from 9.3% to 8.7%. That means a net gain of 656,000 jobs among foreign-born workers compared to a loss of 1.2 million jobs for the native-born.

Such reports will tend to fuel anti-immigrant sentiments, but the resentment is often based on the wrong assumptions. First, it is not really a case of immigrants taking away jobs from native-born Americans. The Pew report notes that immigrants, because they are often obligated not just to fend for themselves but also to send money to their home countries, tend to be more open to doing service jobs that the native-born tend to shy away from. Second, studies involving multiple states have indicated no correlation between immigration flows and the level of unemployment (that is, just because there are plenty of immigrants in one city does not mean more native-born American citizens are unemployed there).

With regard to the view that illegal immigrants are a drag to the US economy, a Congressional Budget Office report states that “undocumented immigrants actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services… They contribute to the US economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of essential worker positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity and lower costs of goods and services; and unrequited contributions to Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance programs.” (See Francine Lipman, “The Impact of Unauthorized Immigrants on the Budgets of State and Local Governments,” The Congress of the United States.)

Unfortunately, demagogues from the extreme right, who would otherwise be fringe elements, tend to rear their ugly heads around these times of economic uncertainty, successfully appealing to baser tribal instincts of exclusion and stoking the embers of xenophobia. Tom Tancredo, who backed out of the 2008 presidential race because he only polled at no more than 2%, is a case in point. Known for his anti-immigration stance as a member of Congress, he has keynoted rallies that reportedly allowed neo-Nazi groups. In July, he bolted the GOP and joined the gubernatorial race in Colorado as an independent. The last pre-election poll showed him dramatically overcoming the official Republican candidate’s double digit lead, placing him second in a three-way race. Even if he does not beat former Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, who is holding on to a double digit lead, the stunning surge of Tancredo’s defiant candidacy sends a rather scary message about where America might be headed if the economy remains stalled.

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