The Costs for Cheap Tomatoes

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Since many of you are, or have been school teachers, I thought this would be an interesting letter that you would relate to. I have modified it so that it would better fit your screen. The teacher wrote:

I am in charge of the English department at a large SoCal high school which is designated a Title 1 school, meaning that its students average lower socioeconomic and income levels.

Most of the school protests in the news lately are Title 1 schools. Here, students receive free breakfast and lunches. I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll, but a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud.

Half of our students are obese or at least moderately overweight. Three quarters have cell phones. Our school provides day care for student mothers. After spending nearly $700,000 this year on new computers, I'm am sickened because half of them have been carved with graffiti.

Free medical, free education, free food, free day care etc. Is it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to demand rights, privileges and entitlements?

Many argue that these illegal aliens contribute to our society because they like their gardener and housekeeper and they like to pay less for tomatoes. They need to spend time in our neighborhoods to see the true costs.

Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education, overcrowding, new diseases. For me, I'll gladly pay more for tomatoes.

We need to wake up. We are rapidly becomming a third world country and it has e everything to do with culture. We will soon be a country that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school, that refuses to assimilate, and a culture that has become so weak and worried about"political correctness" that we don't have the will to do anything about it.

Cheap tomatoes? Isn't that what the whole immigration issue is about? Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage. Consumers don't want expensive produce. Government will tell you Americans don't want the jobs. But the bottom line is cheap labor.

But there is no such thing as cheap labor. Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he will pay no income tax, yet if he files an Income Tax Return, he gets an Earned Income Credit" of up to $3,200. He qualifies for subsidized rent. He qualifies for food stamps. He qualifies for free (no deductible) health care. His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school. He requires bilingual teachers and books. He qualifies for relief from high energy bills. If they are, or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. If qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicaid. All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense.

He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance. He requires Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material. He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits. Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6..00/hour left after paying their bills and his. Cheap labor?

Well, the labor is still cheap around the Thought Dock my friends. But, of course there are neither tomatoes nor aliens there. Yet things are just fine without them.

Enjoy your weekend.
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