VP Debate: Pence’s Missed Opportunities

Guest Post by Joe Guzzardi

When Joe Biden chose California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate, he went against tradition. Typically, a presidential nominee selects an individual who will help him win a swing state. In 2020, that might have been Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Minnesota went for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but only by a narrow margin, 46.9 percent to 45.4 percent. President Trump thinks he can take Minnesota, and some analysts give him a chance to prevail in the historically blue state.

Instead, previously committed to adding a woman of color to his ticket, Biden strangely went with Harris who represents the Titanic that’s California. Formerly the Golden State of orange groves and opportunity, today’s California is a picture of income inequality. It’s a “sanctuary” state for illegal aliens; few citizens dare walk its filthy streets populated by homeless, and it’s plagued by rolling blackouts and wildfires.

California native Harris has the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate – further left than socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders. She performed miserably in the nationwide presidential primaries, and dropped out early when it became obvious that, polling at 7 percent, she couldn’t win even her home state. Harris couldn’t persuade Democratic fundraisers to contribute to her obviously flailing cause. Since California is in the bag for Biden, why he would think that Harris could help him on the nationwide campaign trail remains clear only to him (or maybe not).

Nevertheless, Biden cast his lot with Harris, and there she was Tuesday night in Salt Lake City, dodging softball questions thrown her way by  left-leaning moderator Susan Page, USA Today’s Washington, D.C., bureau chief. The debate was an exercise in obfuscation. But in a post-debate Fox News wrap-up, Democratic analyst Donna Brazile said that Harris, like all women, want to be judged on her record. That Brazile appears as a television commentator or even has the nerve to appear in public is unfathomable when her record is reviewed. Remember that Brazile, who described herself as a Democratic National Committee operative, admitted feeding 2016 debate questions to Hillary Clinton.

Let’s take Brazile’s advice and judge Harris on her record; that is, the votes she cast in the Senate. In the pandemic era, with about 30 million Americans unemployed or under-employed, jobs are a paramount issue to voters. Yet, Harris has consistently sided with Big Tech and Wall Street, and is firmly aligned with the Chamber of Commerce to oppress American workers.

“Oppress” may seem overly harsh, but the affinity of Silicon Valley and Wall Street for candidate Harris confirms the point. The New York Times wrote that Harris is “a VP that big business can back,” noting that “Silicon Valley is happy about seeing a familiar face.”

In her very brief senate career, Harris voted for higher immigration levels more than 50 times. More immigration results in more employment-authorized workers. Because many of those new and pliable workers will accept lower wages, if the Biden-Harris ticket prevails, Americans risk stagnant wages or worse, job displacement, and a reversal of wage gains made during the Trump administration. These are terrible outcomes for African-American and other minorities who Harris claims to defend. Under President Trump, minority wage growth has outstripped white wage increases.

In 2017, Harris voted to increase the H-2B visa cap that allows businesses to import cheap nonagricultural labor, and thereby denies American minorities and others an opportunity to compete for the jobs they need to support their families. Another disastrous immigration bill that Harris cosponsored is the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019. This legislation would end the traditional 7 percent country caps for employment-based visas, and help ensure that future H-1B visas are awarded to mostly Indian and Chinese nationals, blocking other diverse nationals from obtaining an employment visa.

Harris also cosponsored the “Keep STEM Talent Act of 2019,” a bill that would exempt from numerical limitations aliens with master’s degrees or higher in science, technology, engineering and math from U.S. institutions who have an employment offer. STEM, never congressionally approved, is ruinous for U.S. tech graduates who have seen tens of thousands of jobs for which they’re qualified go to overseas students. But, hours before the debate, in an action that should help the president’s campaign, the Department of Labor announced a long overdue, interim final rule that will protect U.S. tech workers and their wages from rampant H-1B visa fraud and STEM abuse.

Harris has an equally anti-American worker voting record on asylum reduction, border and interior enforcement, and amnesty entitlements, all of which will ultimately lead to employment authorization for migrants, their spouses and their adult children.

Assuming a second Biden-Trump debate occurs, when the topic turns to jobs, the president should emphatically connect the dots between more immigration, which Biden and Harris endorse, and fewer American low- and high-skilled jobs.

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