Leading Off
1. American Airlines has canceled another 900 flights, the third day in a row AA has had to struggle with the grounding of its MD-80 planes. Man, I would hate to be Tim Wagner today.
2. Assistant homeland security boss Julie Myers told a Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce luncheon that the Immigration and Customs Department will continue to be hard on employers who hire illegal immigrants. Everyone then turned to look at Tim O’Hare, who had started a slow clap at the back of the room.
3. And finally, plastic surgery denier Ashlee Simpson and her medium talent boyfriend Pete Wentz are engaged.
8 Comments to “Leading Off”
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2. I don’t want the price of restaurant meals to go up God damn it. When is ICE going to realize that? I think even Tim O’Hare would agree — he just doesn’t want brown people around during their leisure hours, since that makes him feel less privileged to live in his shabby little mini-burb.
It’s not just prices going up, with a reduction in the skilled labor you will see some restaurants have to close.
How does that affect Texas? Let’s look at a mid-sized restaurant, sales of $2.5 million a year and the state and local tax revenue it helps generate. Assuming a food-to-booze ratio of 2/3 food, 1/3 alcohol sales this operation would generate about $137,000 in sales taxes (yeah, I know this is paid by the taxpayer, but the business is the link to the state). Also add about $116,000 in gross receipts tax (14% of alcohol sales -not directly paid by the buyer), $20,000 in property taxes and $10,000 in franchise taxes.
Prices go up, demand shrinks, tax revenues go down. Restaurants go out of business, the state won’t reduce spending, taxpayers make up the difference (with no dinner out to show for it).
3. Any word on if MTV is planning on doing a reality show called Newlyvorced?
Of course those empty locations can all become banks, they are known for generating tax revenue.
2. Señor Daniel, I have learned to prepare fine Mexican meals and to serve them to me all by myself at a price I find acceptable, but I, too, remain frightfully worried.
When all of those illegal aliens become too uncomfortable and distressed and decide to return to Alpha Centauri, Barnard’s Star, and points elsewhere, who will provide us with these fine, inexpensive Internets we have grown so accustomed to?
Emilio
Oh, one more tiny little story from this morning’s paper. It rained.
You would hate to be Tim Wagner on any given day, trust me. Today and yesterday just especially.
Except in regards to my fantastic wife - she’s a part of my life beyond all bounds of what I deserve.
So, mostly you would hate to be me every weekday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., because nights, weekends, and vacation are actually pretty fun.
As moderator of the immigration program sponsored by my firm and the Dallas Chamber, I would like everyone that has read these postings to understand that the primary message of the program on immigration enforcement was that we must change our laws in a manner that recognizes the legitimate needs of business and workers , documented or undocumented. Such comprehensive immigration reform would include four key components: enhanced workplace enforcement; a guest worker program to fill our temporary needs with a possible path to residence where a worker becomes a key contributor to a business; an increase in high skilled visa numbers; and a mechanism to address the 12 million undocumented people who are here and can never be deported. If businesses would have voiced their frustration with the Texas Congressional delegation that helped defeat such reform in the 2006 and 2007 Congressional sessions, we might have had a solution by now. Instead, all we have is a wall being built on our border! If the Texas delegation does not hear from businesses, they will continue with their xenophobic anti-immigrant enforcement-only positions that ignore the reality of the Texas economy where undocumented workers contributed over $17 billion to our state coffers according to the State!