A New Day, A New Path

By all accounts, Republicans should have wiped the Democrats out this year: an off-year election cycle and an unpopular Democratic President in office while the country suffers from decades-high inflation. Yet thanks in large part to Donald J. Trump, Democrats were able to transform a red wave into at best the tiniest of trickles. However, I am an optimist at heart, so I choose to dwell on the silver lining to an otherwise dreary electoral cloud. Hopefully, a critical mass of Republicans has begun to realize (rightfully) that Trump is an anathema to most voters, and the party must move on from Trump if Republicans want to govern anytime in the near future.

But while spurning Trump may be a necessary condition to win, I submit it is not a sufficient one. After freeing ourselves from the clutches of a personality cult, we as a party must develop a positive platform intended to improve people’s lives and not simply bloviate about what we are against. Such a positive platform would address a number of issues, but I submit that such a platform should include immigration reform that doesn’t rest on the notion of keeping everyone out but embraces a philosophy that is sometimes referred to as a “tall fence but a wider gate.” As explained below, such a position would be good for the long-term prospects for the party as well as for the country.

For years, we Republicans have come across as disparaging immigrants generally and Hispanics specifically. DeSantis’s dominance in Florida as well as inroads other Republican candidates across the county have made in the Hispanic electorate despite the party’s “poke them in the eye” attitude, underscores that many in Hispanic communities, which certainly are not monolithic, naturally gravitate to historic Republican principles. They tend to be socially conservative, have close knit families, possess a strong work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit, and abhor socialist policies. By adopting a “tall fence but wider gate” approach, which recognizes the contributions and value of legal immigration, the Republican party can capture the lion’s share of the Hispanic and recent immigrant vote. This past election demonstrates that many in the Hispanic community, including new legal immigrants, disapprove of illegal immigration as much as or more than the general population. Thus, we should crack down on illegal immigration and stem the torrent of people crossing the border but expand legal immigration through work visas and ultimate paths to citizenship that will not only improve the Republican Party’s standing in a growing electoral demographic, but also will, as most economists contend, be a boon to the economy while actually combating inflation.

Think about it. A root cause of our supply chain woes and inflationary pressure is the phenomenon that far too many jobs are chasing far too few employees. That causes prices to rise precipitously because the availability of workers cannot meet the employment demand. To achieve full employment with 2% inflation, you need an equilibrium between job openings and available employees. Currently, we are adding hundreds of thousands of jobs each month while the labor force participation rate continues to decline. As of last month, the participation rate shrank to 62.1%. To tame the resulting inflationary pressure, the Fed is trying to slash jobs through interest rate hikes, with often devastating costs to home buyers and consumers. To me, a far better approach to achieving the desired employment equilibrium is to expand our economy by increasing the number of prospective employees through legal immigration, thereby addressing inflation while increasing employment and our gross national product. (As part of the wider immigration gate, I would staple a green card to the advanced degree of almost every foreign exchange student. I don’t want to train people just so they can compete against us.) Our adopting a “higher fence but wider gate” immigration policy would of course be no panacea to our economic problems. But as Ronald Reagan so eloquently understood, such a policy in the long run would serve the Republican Party and our country well. It would also begin to impress upon voters that Republicans don’t erect roadblocks to progress, but they instead seek to establish pathways to prosperity.