RUSH: Here is Tammy in Central California. Great to have you. Thank you for waiting. You’re up next. Hello.

CALLER: Well, thanks Rush. It’s nice to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: I was just gonna bring up the point that I’m 25 years old. My husband and I are fourth generation farmers in the Central Valley of California, and we’ve grown up conservative, and we’re very conservative. We just identify strongly with the conservative views, and immigration is something that we kind of ride the fence on because in our industry, our labor depends on immigration.

So when we start talking about reform, a lot of other farmers in the area start getting nervous just knowing that our labor force could take a major hit. So I just wanted to bring up the point that there could be some Republicans out there that just are just nervous about immigration reform because I honestly believe that our food system depends on it. We depend on having migrant workers coming and doing this work because the average American is not gonna go stand out there in hundred degree weather and pick peaches.

RUSH: Yeah. I’ve heard that. I’ve heard it.

CALLER: Well, we’ve seen it here.

RUSH: I’ve heard it for a long time, that certain jobs and certain worker Americans won’t do.

CALLER: Nope.

RUSH: Right. So the solution is to what?

CALLER: That’s something I don’t know. Make a worker program maybe that is easy to… I don’t know. The application process just takes too long. It needs to be simpler.

RUSH: But you said earlier that your industry, farming, requires, or depends on —

CALLER: Yes. We’ve seen —

RUSH: — immigration, but you meant migrant workers, you meant illegals.

CALLER: Yeah. I mean, we know that a lot of people could be illegal.

RUSH: But yet they’re the only ones who will do the work?

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: Hmm — and, since we’re talking about agriculture, we’re talking about people eating, and so you’re —

CALLER: My point, yeah.

RUSH: So essentially the only way you as a farmer can feed people is if you have people willing to do jobs that most people won’t do, and why won’t they won’t be those jobs? Why don’t Americans do work on your farm?

CALLER: Well, they think they need to paid $15 an hour working at McDonald’s. We can’t pay them $15 an hour picking peaches. We’re a business, too. You know, we have to make money as well or we can’t eat.

RUSH: Right. Right. Okay. I got it, but I can’t say it — and it’s a good thing I just ran out of time.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s stay with our last caller. She’s gone, but let’s stay with what she was saying. Conservative. She’s 25 years old, her family is into farming in the Central Valley of California — which, folks, the Central Valley of California is so fertile, it feeds the world in a lot of categories. She said the reason Americans won’t do at work that they have on their farm is that they will not work for what they can afford to pay, wage-wise.

Okay.

Well, now, that’s admittedly a problem. But my question is: Why is the solution never ending amnesty for everybody who wants to come here, which is gonna turn them into automatic Democrats? Whatever happened to seasonal permitted green card immigration to come in? Seasonal immigration, which we’ve supported in the past, is not immigration, but seasonal work permits for people to come in during the growing season, the picking season, whatever it’s called — and when the work is done, then they leave?

Why isn’t that a solution. To me, and many people, this is not really about amnesty. It’s not really about immigration. It’s not about a humanitarian cause. The people pushing this are just seeking new voters who will remain in a permanent need of government assistance. There is a desire the Democrat Party for a permanent underclass. Now, they say (and the Republicans who support this say) that what they’re trying to do is service the needs of businesses like these farmers.

Farmers who cannot afford to pay full-fledged citizens or full-fledged persons, they won’t work for that money, so we need this influx of people from around the world who come from such poverty that the money they will be paid is humongous to them. Okay. I understand the business needs of farms in this circumstance. But the solution does not have to be amnesty for 20 million people who are going to become Democrat voters.

You know 15 million of ’em are gonna back Democrats. How about another solution? Just as an idea. If the farms cannot pay enough to attract American workers, then how about tax credits to allow them to? Tax credits to let them raise their wage. What about exempting them from the corporate tax rate, for example? What about exempting them from all kinds of federal taxation so that they will not have money to spend on the government, they’ll have money to spend on employees?

My point is, there are all kinds of potential solutions to this that do not involve amnesty for 20 million, whatever the number is. Seasonal migration, which we used to do and which we’ve supported. We understand economics. My point, folks, is that the people behind the immigration reform movement might want you to think that they’re trying to help that woman who called and her farm, but that’s not what they’re into.

Just like we learn from Bob Gates in his book that Obama and Hillary opposed the Iraq war on purely political grounds. Well, that’s not news to you or me because we know who Obama and Hillary are, and everything they do is political. But the same people who put a political calculation on war — and here’s Gates telling us that Obama, he doesn’t even like hanging around with military people, and he’s not even really into this Afghanistan thing.

He’s just doing this because he was handed it, and he doesn’t want to be saddled with defeat, but he’s not really behind it. Yet he is sending people into harm’s way for something he’s not even really committed to. But if we didn’t have Gates’ book, all we would know is Obama’s speeches talking about how much he does want victory and how committed he is to it. But we know he’s not. Okay, well, the same kind of people and the same thinking are here on immigration.

It is nothing more than a giant voter-registration drive to them. But they make it sound like they are concerned about farmers and migrant workers and the other itinerant or attached humanitarian causes. But that’s a smoke screen, because there are solutions that are much less damaging to the culture, to the society, and to the overall economy, not to mention the sanctity of law. Our immigration law is worthless. People are allowed to break it, and very few are ever held accountable.

We don’t need immigration “reform.” All we need to do is enforce the laws that are already on the books, and why don’t we do that? The reason we don’t do that is these bodies are desired. They are seen by both parties as potential voters. So we have this woman in Central Valley of California. She’s conservative. You could hear the Republican inflection in her voice. She’s conservative. But she can’t pay very much for the work she has done.

There are certain people who will do it for what she could afford to pay, but they’re not Americans, and she needs the work done. Her family needs the work. Okay. How do you solve that problem? Well, the problem can be solved without granting amnesty to 20 million people. That’s my only point. (interruption) Well, they would have, except we stopped it. Snerdley just said, “The problem with that is, Rush, that the seasonal people are not gonna leave when the season’s over, because they’re gonna like living here so much more than where they came from. They’re not gonna leave.” (interruption)

Well, free schools, free medical, free health care. But we’re not telling them they can bring their families. Wait a second. Under my idea, and the way it was done in the past, they didn’t bring their families, and they weren’t ending up on welfare. And when the season ended they were sent home. It was up to the employer to produce it and police. It’s been done before. No, we’re not breaking up families. Wrong. How many American fathers go over to Saudi Arabia to work in the oil fields while mom and the kids stay here? We’re not breaking up families; we’re supporting families. We’re letting people come here who want to work. There’s work here that only they will do, supposedly. I’m just accepting that as part of the theory, part of the equation.

Look, my overall point, I’m probably not expressing it well because Snerdley keeps arguing with me. My only point is that there are much more effective, smaller solutions specifically tailored to a specific need than what is being proposed. Nobody wants farms to go out of business. Nobody wants farms to close down. Nobody wants anybody to go hungry. That’s not the case here. But what we all know, what we all understand is that the people that are behind massive, as McCain said, comprehensive, meaningful comprehensive immigration reform, it’s just a voter registration drive to them. Let ’em tell us that that’s what they’re doing, see how it flies.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’ve got so many problems with all of this. This business that there are jobs Americans won’t do, I’ve had problems with that ever since I first heard that from an economist friend who tried to explain it to me. He believed it, thought it was rational. I’ve had problems with it instinctively from the first time I heard it. “Well, there are certain jobs Americans won’t do. Americans’ job expectations have gone way past picking lettuce.”

Okay, fine. We’ve got 90 million Americans not working, almost 91 million Americans not working. That is more people than live in Germany. As you well know, if the unemployment rate actually counted people who no longer were looking for work — who’ve given up — the real unemployment rate would be 11-point-something percent. With 90 million Americans not working, how can there be jobs Americans won’t do? And yet it’s probably true. And the reason is how much we’re paying people not to work. That’s why there are jobs Americans won’t do, is because of how much we’re paying them not to work. Pure and simple, folks.

Okay, so we’ve got an overcrowding problem in our prisons in California. How about letting them out, pick lettuce, pick peaches, and pay them whatever the going rate would be that you pay an illegal? My only point is there are all kinds of solutions here that do not involve massive comprehensive amnesty or immigration reform. Reduce the corporate tax rate that these farms are paying. Reduce what they have to give to the government so they can pay a higher wage.

So the jobs will become those Americans will do. “But, Rush, Americans are not gonna go to the fields and sweat.” Okay, I got a solution for that. If it’s back-breaking work — and we’re told it’s really tough, I mean, it is hard, back-breaking work, then that’s what you do for college and pro football players. You send them there instead of summer training camp. You get ’em in shape. There’s no concussions.

There’s no blown knees, no strained ankles, just a bunch of people sweating in the hot sun, getting ready for football season. Now, I know it’s a stretch. I’m just giving you examples here. There are all kinds of solutions to this. But look at how much we’re paying people not to work? That’s why there are jobs Americans won’t do. And then factor in, we don’t have the money we are paying people not to work.