State Rep. Debbie Riddle’s idiocy (on primarily) immigration issues has been chronicled by this blog and yours truly before – but this takes the cake. Riddle has introduced legislation that would place harsher penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants. Now this is not particular controversial, especially compared to some of her other bills (such as creating an Arizona-style “papers, please” law here), but one provision sticks out:

There is also an exception for domestic help. People who hire or contract with someone for work “exclusively or primarily at a single-family residence” are off the hook.

Wouldn’t want to have to get rid of those maids, would we?

English said that exception was geared toward not “stifling the economic engine” in Texas, so that people who contract out for work in or on their homes don’t have to vet everyone.

Uh, so isn’t she basically admitting in that statement that immigrant labor is a vital part of the “economic engine” of Texas?

Now a cynical person might think this bill is an attempt to look strongly anti-illegal immigrant (even to the point of going against big business if necessary) while protecting the maids, cooks, drivers, and landscapers that work for Republican lawmakers and donors. I wonder if this will cause a stir with conservative activists who really do want to kick them all out of the country?

Worse still, this kind of legislation really isn’t what we need right now:

At a news conference at the Capitol last week, Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez said that if additional legislation proposed by Riddle and her colleagues to round up the undocumented in Texas passed, it would put between 4,000 to 20,000 additional inmates in her jail, carrying an additional cost of more than $1.2 million.

El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles, one of the most outspoken opponents of the myriad immigration-related bills this session, said Riddle’s bill could drain his coffers and max out the capacity of his jail. He said more of his jail’s spots would be taken up by state inmates — meaning he’d have to forgo the more lucrative federal detainees that help keep his budget in the black.

“We don’t have an accurate figure of what the impact is going to be, but surely there is going to be an impact,” he said.

Well hey, if there’s one thing Republicans in the Texas legislature haven’t showed much attention to so far this session, it’s budget issues!

Texas budget cuts are coming, and it looks like education is going to take a huge hit. Everything is variable right now, based on an analysis of one proposed budget. The fact of the matter is that it could be worse, or possibly not as bad for educators. However, here’s what some local school districts are looking at: Irving is offering $1000 to quit and looking to lose 200 to 250 positions, Arlington’s proposed budget cuts 390 positions, and we’ve all heard that Dallas’ proposed budget would get rid of 4,000 positions with an estimated 3,100.  Read here.

“When you look at the enormity of the issue, there’s no question that if it’s half as much as they are projecting, it’s still bad, really bad,” Santiago said.

Moak and Santiago have heard from many Texas school districts about their ideas for cuts. Most involve losing employees, they said, which is logical since 80 to 85 percent of school district expenses go to payroll.

“I think the easy cuts have been made the previous two years,” Santiago said. “It’s not a fun time in public education.”

It’s impossible to overstate the impact of this. Overall, we’re talking thousands and thousands of jobs. While some might argue that losing people paid for by taxes is not an economic impact at all (at least, conservatives who don’t understand economics would), the loss of several thousand jobs in a state already overburdened by the unemployed is not something easily countenanced.  After all, what are they supposed to do for jobs? Compete with all the other unemployed, educated people looking for part time jobs?

Once again, this is the consequence of electing Republicans. Not only do they destroy the economy, they attempt to hide it for years on end, then we end up with disastrous economic results. But hey, at least Rick Perry will force women to have sonograms before they get abortions!

Update: Lightseeker has a very relevant post up on Texas Kaos about the lie that too much money goes to non-teachers.

If you read the news (God help you if your main source is TV “news”), you’ll be thoroughly confused by the conflicting economic reports. For one thing, you’ve got Tim Geithner telling you that everything A-OK and we’re on the way to complete economic recovery, albeit very slowly. Sorry guys, I voted for Obama and will again, but that just isn’t true. I can only guess CNN doesn’t have anybody who knows what to think since their coverage is about the possibility that the Fedwill mention the possibility of deflation. Their article is so pathetic I hesitate to even link to it. Krugman doesn’t yet say that it will occur, only that indicators are heading in that direction. The Fed is divided with some arguing for preemptive acts against deflation and others saying such fears are unfounded.

Of 10 current members on the committee, two are openly concerned about inflationary risks; three, now including Mr. Bullard, are somewhat worried about deflation; and five centrists, including Mr. Bernanke, have not expressed a firm leaning either way.

Now even private sector economists are getting in on it.

Mr. Hatzius is arguably Wall Street’s most prominent pessimist. He warns that the American economy is poised for a sharp slowdown in the second half of the year. That would send unemployment higher again and raise the risk of deflation. A rare occurrence, deflation can have a devastating effect on a struggling economy as prices and wages fall. He says he may be compelled to downgrade his already anemic growth predictions for the economy.

For months, Mr. Berner has been sticking to a more optimistic forecast, despite growing evidence in favor of Mr. Hatzius’s view.

In short, it’s probably the case that it’s too soon to tell. Either we have severe prolonged period of growth so slow it’s negligible or we actually have deflation. For an explanation of why that’s a bad thing, read this.

On the other hand, we do have a clear picture of what’s going on with employment. In short, it sucks.

Many economists are forecasting a further slowdown in the second half of the year, perhaps to an annual rate as low as 1.5 percent. That is largely because businesses have refilled the stockroom shelves that were whittled down during the financial crisis, and there will not be much need for additional orders.

Additionally, the fiscal stimulus measures that have propped up growth are expiring. Proposals for individual programs like another expansion of unemployment benefits have been beaten back each time they have come up in Congress.

“We need 2.5 percent growth just to keep the unemployment rate where it is,” said Christina Romer, chairwoman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers. “If you want to get it down quickly, you need substantially stronger growth than that. That’s what I’ve been saying for the last several quarters, and that’s why I’ve been hoping that we’ll please pass the jobs measures just sitting on the floor of Congress.”

Yeah, no joke! If you keep in mind that the “recovery” was no more than an aberration brought about by the anemic stimulus package (and census hiring), we may actually be sitting on a plateau of unemployment right now. If GDP growth continues to shrink and falls significantly under that 2.5%, we’re going to see unemployment rising and rising. That’s going to be hard on people. As a matter of fact, there’s a measurement for this:

Using this measure, Hacker and his colleagues determined that the proportion of Americans economically insecure in 2009 and 2010 was higher than at any time in the last 25 years. This reflects the impact of the recession, obviously, but it’s also indicative of a long-term trend towards greater vulnerability. The percentage of insecure Americans was 13.7 percent during the recession of the early 1990s and 17 percent during the recession at the beginning of the last decade. For this recession, it’s 20.4 percent. (Note: That’s a projection, since not all the relevant data is available yet.)

Vulnerability is the key word here. There are a lot of people struggling because there simply are no jobs to be had, not even at minimum-wage fast-food joints. There’s no government work program. Not everybody can join the military (because they’re not eligible, not because of moral objection). If you lose your job in this recession, not only are there no immediate prospects; there’s no likelihood of there being any prospects at any point in the near future (and by near we may be talking in excess of five years). Nobody thinks the economy is going to turn around in the near future. Even if it did pick up, there are just a lot of jobs that have disappeared for good. The landscape of the American economy is changing and it’s going to leave a lot of people behind. I’ve discussed that before in other economic posts.

And last but not least, the suffering continues as people get dropped off of unemployment.

In June, with long-term unemployment at record levels, about 1.4 million people were out of work for 99 weeks or more, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not all of them received unemployment benefits, but for many of those who did, the modest payments were a lifeline that enabled them to maintain at least a veneer of normalcy, keeping a roof over their heads, putting gas in their cars, paying electric and phone bills.

As a small aside, I reject the idea that “normalcy” is the proper word. It sounded wrong when Warren G. Harding dragged it out and it sounds wrong now. ”Normality” is what I normally use. Anyway, while you have conservatives (although what makes them conservative anymore I have no idea) and perhaps some libertarians arguing vehemently against unemployment benefits, these people are actually becoming homeless. Do you know how hard it is to get a job with no address, no phone, and no transportation? It’s pretty damn hard.

I know that we have to keep going on and plugging away regardless of whether the economy turns around any time soon or not, but it’s hard to believe we’re going to return to better times. As we finally learned to our great disappointment, the good times we were living in (well, many of us were living in) were fueled by credit. That day will not return. The low-education, high-wage jobs people had 40 years ago are gone, never to return. Education isn’t cheap (and for the best jobs it isn’t easy) which is why many people skip it on the assumption they can go out and get a job pays well. That’s not going to be possible for many people in the future. And who can be saddled with 30, 60, or even 100 thousand dollars of debt for an education when they can only get a job that pays $35,000 a year?

It’s time to face reality that the way we live is broken. It’s time to change things and yet our politicians lack the courage, conviction, or willpower to quit politicking and actually do something about it. To my liberal brethren, I say we must kick our own party members in the pants until they act for our benefit, not to further their own chances of reelection.