St. Louis CofCC Blog

AP:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - President Bush sharply challenged critics of his stalled immigration-overhaul efforts on Thursday, suggesting that failure to pass a guest-worker program could trigger a labor shortage in the United States.

And this is bad because? Unless the laws of supply and demand have not changed recently, this will mean higher wages, salaries and compensation for labor. It’s certainly bad for those who have to pay the higher costs of labor, especially considering that the alternative isn’t that hard to implement. Those that say that President Bush more closely represents the interests of the wage-paying classes rather than the wage-earning classes might be justified by this.

At a town-hall style meeting, Bush also rebuffed a question about whether he would consider pardoning two Border Patrol agents in prison for the cover-up of the shooting of a drug trafficker in Texas.

“No, I won’t make you that promise,” Bush told a woman who asked about a possible pardon. Many Republicans in Congress have said the men should not have been convicted and have criticized the federal U.S. attorney for even prosecuting the agents.

There are several candidates for President in 2008 that have made that specific promise. It is likely that the only hope for real justice for Ramos and Compean, and many others like them, is for one of these candidates actually becoming President.

UPDATE 7/20:  Video of the town hall meeting where President Bush was asked the question about Ramos and Compean showed that Bush literally turned his back toward the woman who asked the question after she asked it.