Oregon votes Yes on its own suicide

@2345StSt: Thanks for adding that! I wrote this off the cuff...I've been sick since last night, but felt the need to add something.

@2345StSt: 

My condolences to you (and to Nof... or are you in WA?), it seems Oregon has drawn exactly the wrong lesson from CA.

@TLaCour: At least Cali had the sense to vote down there tax increases last year

@Nof: yep, although that "good sense" seems too often fleeting down there.  They're screwed:  no tax increases (well, eally, no increased revenue, different Q) and no guts to cut spending.  BK here they come.

@2345StSt: Look at the web !  Oregon has just made itself the laughingstock of the entire country....unbelievable !!!

I'm leaving.

@2345StSt: ALL governments (In the US anyway) overpay for everything.

@dholsop:  In Oregon it was class vs. class. In 2009 the Democrat legislature polled and found that voters would favor a tax on corporations and the rich (single taxpayers making $125,000 per year and couples who make twice as much). In Tuesday's referendum vote, most of Oregon's counties opposed the tax but people in the metropolis area and university towns supported it. As there are more government workers, union members, and poor than there are "rich" people and corporations, the tax passed. The gov't workers, union members, and poor stuck it to the other guy. For now the other guys are losing. In the long run....

@dholsop: When you whine about paying a fair share then we all lose, not only that but it is boring how the RW Neocon fascists just drone on and on about how unfair life and taxes are, god, get a life.

@RuinedHope: I'm talking about the moral hazard of voting a benefit for yourself at others expense....like Obama's ploy of paying for health care by taxing the rich. It reeks of setting one class against another, like a divide and conquer strategy. The Constitution requires tax to be uniform to avoid the this type of moral hazard.  I am not rich and I do not want any benefit from this kind of tax structure. I am thankful for what I have.

@dholsop: .....and that is exactly what has been going on in california for at least 30 years, and look at the result.

@hempdaddy6: good comment, hemp.  Jim will respond that he would get the unions out of the fray, too.  Not gonna happen.  His public financing solution is another federal goat rope waiting to happen.  He wants answers to the campaigning conundrum vis a vis financing.  The First Amendment has an answer.  Do nothing. 

@hempdaddy6:  and chinamen build phils tennys.

@Freesmith: perfect comment.  The best labs for social and political experiments are the states.  It's cheaper, the results show up much more quickly, and the fixes for failures are addressed on a higher priority basis.  Best of all, the residents will vote with their feet, as you pointed out. 

@Freesmith: 

Amen.  IF we are allowed to retain the States as substantive laboratories, and IF we can vote with our feet...

What if all the states go south and take the seductive tax-the-other-guy route?

What ever happened to Constitutional Requirement that Taxes be Uniform...looks like a divide and conquer strategy.

@Flyguy:  You are right, too few understand economics.  But of those that do, too many simplify it to a cause-effect relationship.  If A happens, then B will result.  A simple 2D world where everything is in equilibrium or will revert to equilibrium.  What those people don't understand is how exogenous forces interact to keep the relationships dynamic. There are more forces at play at any given time than a 2D economics graph will tell you. 

@Kobio:  He cant spel no better becuse he's a gradute of the Oregun public school sistem.

@Kobio: Raelly is thate all yuo got?? Prhaps if the scools hadd mor monye eye could hav got a beter eduction....eat it. Punctuation and grammar errors really don't mean shit except to academic assholes....Take your frivolous crap elsewhere or offer solutions.

@Kobio: 

How utterly fastidious and pedantic of you, sir. Why, I'll bet that you can painstakingly count the hairs on a snatch without getting a hard-on.

@Kobio: 

15 thumbs down because you point out someone can't spell.  What a shit-hole site this is. Or is that shit-whole for you 15 idiots that like spelling mistakes?

@Anonymous: all that wasted energy over a misspelled word? Christ, you assholes should get a life !

@Tom Frank: I believe thats called Anarchy. Probably not a good idea here. Alot of hippies might meet there end

@Tom Frank: who said, "who are you going to blame your troubles to?"  Stuck?

@Skyprince: You are correct! Buisness will flee north and east. I doubt it'll go south. However Wa is not so steller. Aren't they doing a pretty good job of running off Boeing?

@Nof: Yes, you are right, but that wasn't the State.  The unions are chasing Boeing out.  Boeing has had it with the continuous strikes...and just as in Detroit, these guys are well paid.  South Carolina has laid our the red carpet and the folks there are tickled pink to be getting jobs paying half to 70% of the average pay here in Washington. 

@Skyprince: Ahhh..Yes your right. I remember that now. It was the unions that would not negotiate a mutual deal...they wanted it all....As usual

@RuinedHope: Ohhh you have degree in finance...wow. So your an expert? So what your saying is that the GovCo's have a right to anything I have produced from my time and labor. That GovCo is immune from having to cut there budgets just like every other person does when they run short on money? That if I was smart and saved my money and put it to work making more money, the GovCo has an inherent right to some or all of it. Cause really if they can raise the taxes to 11% why not just raise it to 100%?

Your a disabled vet, great. Thank you for your service. I'm also a vet and this is not the United States of America I thought exisited.

I thought we had the Right to life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness. A land where if I minded my own buisness without violating others rights I could be left alone. All I want from GovCo is to PROTECT MY RIGHTS. Instead all they do it TAKE THEM.

@RuinedHope: Sounds like a great state to be a consumer or used car salesman.  Say bye bye to any manufacturing base you have.  Hopefully your tourism is doing well.  Watch for your sales tax to go up in the future when all the manufacturing base and related jobs are gone.  It will be interesting to watch what happens to Oregon, who knows maybe in the future you will be proven correct.  I'm bettin against this call though.  This is the beauty of the states making there own decisions and not the federal government.  What you think is brilliant and I think is crazy can be played out in 50+ states with different methods applied.  Hopefully some of the states make the right choice and we can actually learn from it. 

@tbessi: So you did not actually READ what I wrote before you commented did you?  I said and will say again, we have NO sales taxes in Oregon.  Property taxes are reasonable, I pay just about 1.2% as compared to the neighbor to the south, California, where their property taxes are limited to 1.5% by Prop 13.  Why we even have full serve only gasoline stations, it is illegal to pump your own gas, and the rightwingers say crap like such a thing will drive up the price of gas to unreasonable levels, yet gas in Oregon is 90 cents a gallon cheaper than in California 20 miles from here (by the way, gasoline taxes are two cents higher here than there, there is no reason for gas to be so high in California other than sheer theft from consumers, try whining about that instead). 

Oregon never had much of a manufacturing base to start with other than raw materials, like timber, and a lot of that has already gone away having nothing to do with tax levels. 

Yeah NoF, I am something of an expert in this area, at least more than about 95% of the readers here, having worked in government most of my adult life, though my real area of expertise is healthcare finance.  I was a financial analyst with the Medicaid program, I also worked in a couple of banks Corporate trust departments, and had a stockbrokers license (I even know the difference between their and there). 

The truth is that the government (which is really just all of us collectively) does have a right to take anything of what you produce with your time and labor.  I mean legally they, we, can do anything we like, and your only legal avenue to avoid that if you feel too much resentment is to vote for people that will tell you they want to change the system, of course they can't really change anything as long as big money is involved in our electoral system, I guess you could also move to another nation, some have done it.  Let me say I feel your pain though, I do not like a lot of things about this country these days, you know I actually thought I had a right to see the vital public records of any other citizen, especially one that is running for president, and now that he is president I still can't even see the bastards birth cert.

11% income tax rates are really not very high when you stop to think that most states have a rate just as high AND they have higher fees for vehicles, toll roads, sales taxes on everything you buy, California for example has all of those, it's net tax bite is at least double per capita above Oregon, yet it still has to float tens of billion per year in new debt.  Our budget is balanced.  It has gotten so boring to hear the rightwingers bleating about taxes when we all know that the right has no better record on taxes than the left.  The largest increases in taxation ever in this nation happened during times of GOP government, Reagun and Bush one to be exact.  Well, till Obama anyway, it is just that almost all RW whiners that bemoan tax and spend can't seem to understand that borrow and spend is far worse.  Not only has this policy of debt spent more than could ever be paid for it allows them to shift the burden of the spending off of the backs of those that can actually pay to those that cannot, namely the middle class.  If you are going to spend it at least tax it from those that actually have something to take.

I think all the people who are upset about government over spending (and that is all of us to one degree or another) do not so much dislike the spending, only that the money is being spent for stuff you don't like, abortions come to mind, as well as illegal immigration and supporting the abortions and kids of illegals etc.  I bet all I own you would really yelp a lot louder if you turned on the tap and no water came out, or it was brown with dirt and who knows what else.  If your toilets backed up all over the floor because there was no sewage treatment, you had to drive on unpaved roads, there was neither street lighting or even gutters for rain water, what if the cops only form of pay was the bribery they could coerce from people?  Here is an idea, go visit Tijuana for a few days and see what your low tax paradise will look like.  Take rubber boots though, last time I was there I ruined my sneakers with the sewage running in the streets.

@RuinedHope: Glad to see you speaking up for your point of view and for your state.  Two comments.

1. You wrote, "Plain fact, no political crapola, just a few bad years."?  Nice if that were true.  Your expert fanancial analysis should reveal that the nation is facing more than just a few bad years.  However, economic dissappointment won't be unique to Oregon.

2. Despite your assumptions about what is legal (Constitutional), the majority can only take what the minority will let em take.  There is a practical limit.  Indeed, one of the reasons Oregon is going to experience more than just a few bad years, is that economic crisis is planned for the entire country.  Oregonians like other Americans, will experience civic unrest.  The practical result of legal stealing.

@MikeinAZ: Sales taxes are regressive in that the poorer you are the larger percetage of your income they take.  Of course if you knew anything about economics you would know that and you pretend to by your posting here, so I can only assume you are intentionally a liar.  But that is to be expected when any right wing nut starts to talk about taxation.  It is just a plain fact of life that those with the bread are going to have make the sandwiches, I again invite all you RW posters (since you insist upon turning financial debate into political bloviating) to go visit some of the border towns in Mexico to see what your tax free paradise looks like.  Go ahead, we will wait for you to get a clue.

@RuinedHope: You should rename yourself 16th Amendment, for all of your hundred-plus-year-old TR and WJB Progressive views on taxation.  Why do you waste your time on a board like this?  Think we're vulnerable to Obama-esque snow jobs regarding Trotskyite/Alinskyite policies?  Or do you enjoy getting your teeth kicked in by private sector professionals who underwrite your ticket?  Which hope of yours has been ruined, exactly?  The hope of living in Moskva under Soviet rule?  The hope of Algore as World Premiere? 

I've been to the border towns in Mexico, and some of the interior ones.  What you chalk up to insufficient taxation is in sooth the legacy of over 100 years of despotism.  It is a neo-feudal society, and we are headed that way.  Mexico is coming HERE (literally and figuratively), thanks to panty-waist leaders like Barry Light Skinned No Negro Accent Obamao.

I do commend you for not being a spineless Anon.

@RuinedHope: You are entertaining, hang around. Love the right wing comment, I've learned that right wing coming from a progressive/liberal/democrat/populist or whatever today's polled term is, is a term of envy so I take it as a compliment, thank you. To me, right wing means someone who believes that their success or failure should be a result of his or her own actions. Which we know eats at the progressives (give everything to me and use other people's money to do it, all outputs should be equal regardless of input, don't you dare keep score at youth's soccer games) at the very core. I won't argue with you that people that make more generally or at least have the means to spend more. But, isn't the fairest way to tax to charge everyone the same who lives in an area regardless of income? They're using the same roads, social programs, schools, etc. Do they charge different rents in an apartment complex based on income? Different amounts in an HOA even given different homes? Different amounts for cheeseburgers at McDonalds, different amounts for any purchases of any kind? I actually think we should take it further and add a value added tax to non-essential purchases to reduce income taxes. That would help the poorer folks even more and eliminate the regressiveness (new word) that you dislike so much.

Keep pushing the folks that hire people out of your state, we'd love to have them in Arizona. :*) BTW, I notice you intentionally ignored my last comment. Socialist got your tongue??

@RuinedHope: your numerous comparisons of Oregon to California have likely fallen on deaf ears.  California makes ALL of the other 49 states look like economic geniuses, including Michigan, which has fallen prey to the decades-old incompetence of the American auto industry.  Give yourself a more difficult challenge.  Try Oregon vs. Texas. 

@Whippet: And who was underwriting your ticket when I got hurt in the service and now find the nation unwilling to pony up as it is commited to do?  The funny thing about nazis and neocons like we see so many of in modern politics is that they have zero imagination when it comes to the future, they cannot see that an angry population will first disembowel them so if you HAVE got a bit of that grossly unequal wealth stolen from the real workers who produced it you better figure out how to hide it, because when the revolution starts it will resemble the French version more than anything else, and I will be the one up on the scaffold in the black hood.  You see obligations everywhere for others and few if any for yourself.  You like to deny that there is a social contract because it makes you feel good about greed, but buddy, the day I open the tap and what comes out is undrinkable because you refuse to pay a fair share then fine, lets rumble.  Or how do you put it?  Shall we all get together and kick teeth?  Lovely people like you who think in terms of hate and war are the reason the USA is failing, and it is not Oregon's suicide but the suicide of the western civilization when the rich are given a free pass and a key to the sacred treasury while the poor and now defunct middle class get to be debt and wage slaves.  I say good ridence too, we can start over and build a nation without fascists but not till you have totally destroyed capitalism and AmericaInc.

By the way, I am all in favor of a flat tax on ALL income no matter the sources above the first 100 grand.  Perhaps 40% will do nicely.  Had the personal exemption been indexed to the real cost of living over the years nobody would pay income taxes on the first 70 thousand by now.

@RuinedHope: Hurt in the service?  You poor soul.  Did you or did you not VOLUNTEER to serve?  Your profile says you were born in 1958.  You VOLUNTEERED.  The draft was over when you signed your name on the dotted line.  Tough shit if you got hurt, chief.  What the fuck did think the armed forces were all about, an adult girl scout troop? 

Don't fire bullshit such as "who was underwriting your ticket" at other people such as Whippet when you knew damn well what you were getting into.  And what's this crap about the nation "unwilling to pony up as it is committed to do."  What IS the nation committed to do?  Babysit every single, solitary veteran who served until they die?  Your attitude makes me sick, and I could care less what sob story you come up with about how you were mistreated by the Veterans Administration or whatever the fuck your whimpy story is about.

You are 52, and you are retired!!!  How long with that status?  When did you stop living and thinking?  You are one bitter dude.  Go find a fucking job, and I don't care if you're in a wheelchair.

@RuinedHope: Typical liberal, I don't make as much as someone else so tax them to pay for me.  If I can't tax you , I will steal your stuff.  Real workers?  I smell a union man.

@RuinedHope:  Sure, Oregon does some things well and is a nice place to live.That's not the concern of those commenting. Instead, those posting point out  that Oregon, rather than trying to live within its means, asked for more money to support its excesses. Another point they make is that Oregon encouraged the have nots to make the haves to pay the state's excess bills. A third key point is that Oregon says it's going to make business pay and pay and pay. All that they say is going to make Oregon a not so nice place to live in the future. That's the point.

@SSS: Brilliant dissertation on the workings of the fascist mind, thank you, enough said.

@MikeinAZ: Yeah, well duh dude, that is how taxation and government work.  If you have money/assets some of it is going to go to the government no matter how much you wish it were not so.  Grow up, pay up, shut up about it.

@Whippet: I did not say that the disgusting state of Mexican municipal failure was due to undertaxation, but that it was a result of their economic policies that resulted in grossly (In Mexico's case almost the worst in the world) unequal income and wealth distribution.  Vibrant societies and economies can only tolerate so much inequality before they start to collapse, Mexico is a great example of what a nation looks like when there is no functional middle class, and we are getting there very fast ourselves.  Neocons in particular love to cry over their tax bills, and their favorite refrain is about how tax policy is used to redistribute THEIR wealth, well it is not THEIR  wealth, not till the problems of the nation have been solved anyway, and that is going to be the way it is no matter what else you think, the government is granted the power to tax by the people, check out the constituion if you do not agree.  I do not understand why these concepts are so foreign to the RW.

@RuinedHope: Not worthy of a reply. Congrats again on the degree and good luck to you!

@SSS: 

Shame on you, SSS. That's no way to treat a lady.

@MikeinAZ: Great point.  Little discussed is the label of "regressive taxation" for sales taxes that, of course, the Original Progressives placed on the phenomenon in the 1900s.  This led to a Populist outcry for the damned 16th Amendment- replace excise and sales taxes with Income Taxes, promised to only the wealthiest 5%.

We see where that ended up.

They are only regressive taxes on a percentage basis- and they aren't at all if they are not levied on staples (basic foods, heating fuels, baseline durable goods).  The broad label "regressive" is based on a ceteris paribus assumption that men A B and C of different income levels all spend the same amount on eligibly taxed goods.  If each spends proportionally more, they are flat at all points.  But in a sane reality, where persons spend WHAT THEY CAN AFFORD, they are actually Progressive- especially in a system like Pennsylvania's where food and clothing are exempted from sales taxes.

Eagerly awaiting a "sophisticated" response from RuinedHope.

@Whippet: I've always loved that example above. Whip..don't get me started on the 16th amendment. The damn thing from what i can see and read is a huge red herring.

1. Could our grandparents and great grand parents really be that stupid?

2. Perhaps the point of the 16th was to close the loop hole exposed by the supreme court in 1895. Thereby making the robber barron class pay income taxes on the "income" they were rolling in, derived from there dealings with government. (Selling gov bonds, gov stocks, etc) AKA they were getting rich via milking the Gov and paying nothing back.

3. Supreme Court decisions following the passage of the 16th said that: The income tax is an "excise" tax entitled to be enforced as such. The 16th amendment conferred NO new powers of taxation to the congress.

So if it was not taxable before the 16th...It was still NOT taxable after the 16th. The 16th did not repeal the provisions of the constitution prohibiting direct UNapportioned taxes.

And if the income tax is an "excise" tax..........What specifically is the privileged activity you or I have participated in to have our money taxed?

@Davido: I've seen this before.  Tells a great economics lesson.  You might have to revise the story a bit.  I just read an article recently that the number of Americans who pay NO income tax has just reached 50%. 

@SSS: Is it time to start looking for a new bar?

@OrdinaryAmericn: ????? 

@dholsop: Taxes be uniform?  Where does it say that?  By the way that is a mathematical impossbility, if all taxes had to be equal to the amount the poorest citizen could pay then the result is zero taxes, something that you neocon fascists would like no doubt, but no way to run a country.

The final phrase of the Taxing and Spending Clause stipulates:

Here, the requirement is that taxes must be geographically uniform throughout the United States. This means taxes affected by this provision must function "with the same force and effect in every place where the subject of it is found."[31] However, this clause does not require revenues raised by the tax from each state be equal.

Justice Story characterized this requirement in a light more relevant to practicality and fairness:

In other words, it was another check placed on the legislature in order to keep a larger group of states from "ganging up" to levy taxes benefiting them at the expense of the remaining, smaller group of states.

The principle applies if not to the letter for the reason stated above. I am against a graduated income tax. A flat tax on income with an upper limit and no deductions would be a UNIFORM tax where we all pay something. We ALL need to pay something so that the benefits are not free to anyone. It is too easy to spend someone else's money.

BTW -  I am of a libertarian bent, no neocon.

@ReverseEngineer:  Ever consider that maybe we should reduce the size and cost of Da Goobermint?

@ReverseEngineer: Here is the neocon fascist answer, the richest guy in the room buys for all but borrows the amount of the tab against the credit of the other 9 less fortunate than he with or without their permission, and supports himself and all future generations of his offspring by charging the others interest so that he never has to work again, and when the poorest 9 gyus can't repay he gets to foreclose on them so that they are now his wage/debt slaves for life with no ossibility of betterment or advancement.  I call it Mexico.

@MikeinAZ: 

6 or 7% of 1% of the total wealth in the population it's utterly insignificant, and Politicians could buy votes simply by adding and taking away a percentage point before and after elections.  It gives the bottom 40% near Zero "skin in the game".  Its a waste of energy and an IRS accountant's time.  It would cost you more in IRS accountants than you would raise in the taxation. It makes no economic sense whatsoever.

Far as your rich scumbags leaving town, they can feel free to do so, just not with the money.  You place a 100% Exit Tax on anyone leaving the country.  For anyone to do business in the country, they have to agree to abide by your state charter for doing business.  Besides this, one has to wonder just where the rich scumbags will go anymore?  EVERYBODY is dropping down taxation to cover their deficits.  The Brits already dropped down compensation limits on Banksters, the EU is doing the same.

The math is the math.  If the distribution of wealth is skewed so that only a few people have most of the wealth, this is the bankroll that has to be taxed.  Certainly trying to cut Goobermint spending is desirable, except its those same rich scumbags who want more prisons and more cops to protect their property.   Its inescapable reality under the taxation paradigm and centralization of wealth.  Live with it.

RE

@ReverseEngineer: That type of thinking gave us Barack  Hussein Obama.  The 6% is not insignificant to the poor, and if it would have saved us from where we are today, it's immeasurable.  The point you can't seem to get is that the reason taxes go up are because giveaways increase, it's a circle that is perpetuated by your math.  Where your system would work for paying a beer tab, it does not work over time out here in reality.

100% exit tax, rediculous.  Do you think anyone would abide by that.  As much as I'm all for deincentivizing and holding business people hostage as anyone (sarcasm), but here, the math is not the math.

@MikeinAZ: 

Nothing would have saved us from where we are today.  Where we are today is a consequence of compounding interest in a debt based monetary system.  A 1% poor tax raises no money, and its consequences to the poor are simply punitive as a means to control said group's votes.  Anyhow, the system is not "my system".  Its just an Excel Spreadsheet.  I just did the calculations, I did not make any kind of system.  If you can find a flaw in the math, you have an argument, elsewise you are just blowing smoke here.

100% exit tax is easy to enforce in an all digital system.  You are compelled to abide by it since you cannot trade in the system otherwise.  You simply have a hard time thinking like a real Fascist :-)  I would have absolutely Zero problem completely stripping anyone of all their wealth.  I have studied the Experts.  Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, Bob Diamond et al.  Difference of course is I am Robin Hood.  I would steal from the Rich to give to the Poor, unlike the current crew that works the system the other way round.

RE

@MikeinAZ: I just added some links in main article. Its not looking so good! Just talking to a few people in my area, the gossip is bad. Buisness is leaving, hours are being cut...The question was posed to management at my job and was promptly punted to "thats a corporate question". BAD

@MikeinAZ: 

I'll let you know when they put me in charge of the theft.  Right now as Warren Buffett said, in the class war the rich are winning.

RE

@MikeinAZ: Right On! They have the government they deserve. The problem is we don't deserve it!

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. 

Thomas Jefferson

@XRAYMAN: soon as i win the lottery, ill hire some dumb ass to turn off the lights. that goes for the united states of banananomics too.

@Flyguy:  First they want the water. That's the loot the Californians want.

@Anonymous: The tax increase was passed by Oregon's Democrat legislature in the summer of 2009. The increase applies to 2009 income and corporate sales. Only time will tell how many upper income people and businesses leave the state. And only time will tell how quickly and how much prices increase in Oregon. Whether the Democrats will drive more Oregonians out of work and out of the state than Oregon's livability attracts remains to be seen.

@Dee: The forty years was a period of increasing societal imbalance, greed and irresponsibility. The last decade saw and acceleration and a tipping point reached. The really wealthy became accustomed to not paying even middle class  tax rate. Warren Buffet had an article out a couple of years ago mentioning how his office secretary pays a higher tax rate near 30% on her low six figure income while his tax rate was 17% after all the loopholes.

As every country's producers are underpaid based on inflation which is a form of theft, the productivity begins to decrease. This is what happened to the Soviet Union and now happening on a global basis. Feudalism is what the global government type is, fascism also applies.

The result is that uber wealthy will see increasing prices on luxuries and basic necessities meaning the dwindling pile of producers begin getting paid more and that is how trickle down economics works. Or like the Soviet Union the entire country collapses.

Should it work this way with decade+ long gaps of near starving producers? No, but as this global economic system is non-sustainable and collapses, it leaves mankind opportunity to restructure. The biggest missing link is representation in the money supply. Foolish to have representative governments but not have representation in the money supply.

@Flyguy: gasoline up .14 cents a gallon. 2 /28/10.

@Anonymous: I know two dual citizens who have returned to Canada, in both cases for health insurance as well as work.  I understand quite a few dual Mexican-Americans have also left the country - there are large areas of rural Mexico where you can at least grow food.  The Central Valley in CA is becoming a wasteland - at least, that's the view from the I5.

@Dee: mexicans leaving? that must really upset the neocons that allowed them here for the advantage of the subprime loans.

They allowed unfettered illegal immigration (which would be easy to stop simply by policing employers) to break the back of Unions, and their job is done.