There is a vacuum between his speechmaking and his governing

Mickey Kaus writes about disconnects between what Obama has been doing, and what Obama is now speechifying about. The two main things Obama has been trying to do, gun control and immigration, are not mentioned, as he now tells us that what he has really been doing is working on improving the economy. Obamacare, gun control, immigration reform and climate change are the

highest priority of Organizing for America, the potentially transformative, slightly Chavez-y extra-party grassroots lobbying group Obama established after the 2012 campaign.

Kaus again:

nothing the President is currently promoting comes even close to reversing “the forces that have conspired against the middle class for decades.”

Unfortunately, the “immigration reform” bill championed by Obama–the biggest item on his domestic legislative agenda–would make sure this tight labor market never returns. Indeed, that is part of its appeal to business. First, it would legalize 8 million or so previously undocumented immigrants who are now living here but aren’t now free to compete in every field of employment. Second, it would encourage many more foreign workers, mostly unskilled. to cross the border illegally–after all, those that went before were legalized in order to appeal to Latinos, and there will be more Latino voters in 2020 than today. Third it would explicitly expand the legal unskilled immigrant and temporary workforce by several million (increasing by 10 million the number of U.S. residents, excluding the legalized illegals).

Put all these together and you have an unskilled labor pool flooded with newcomers. in which wages for those who sweep floors will predictably fall. Economists heatedly debate whether, overall, unskilled workers might benefit by, say, supervising the work of cheap foreign floor-sweepers. But there’s little debate that the least skilled unskilled workers–e.g. those who remain floor sweepers–will fall further behind. Meanwhile, the profits for those who hire them, who tend to be at the top of the income pile, should be healthy.

Income inequality, in short, will rise. Obama’s “legacy’ achievement would make the trend he wants to “reverse” worse. Even jobs that can’t be “outsourced” will be subject to newly “insourced” foreign labor competition. Call it Bringing Globalization Home.

Kaus notes,

there’s a vacuum between his speechmaking and governing.

via Instapundit