With Friends Like Sen. Lindsey Graham, Who Needs Democrats?

“Birds of a feather flock together.” “You can judge a man by the company he keeps.”

How about this, “One of my favorite senators is Lindsey Graham.” That came out today on Fox during the debate between Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio. That tells me all I need to know about what kind of senator Charlie Crist would make and strengthens my resolve to see to it that Marco Rubio is the next United Senator from the state of Florida.

Sen. Lindsey Graham seems to be doing everything in his power to piss off Republicans. Consider this:

Graham: Obama done 'almost nothing' on immigration

The lonely leader for immigration reform legislation among Senate Republicans, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, is chafing at what he views as the White House's unwillingness to put political muscle behind the effort.

"The president promised to pass an immigration reform bill in his first year. They’ve done almost nothing in the White House on immigration," Graham said Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press."

While the White House has been urging Graham and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to craft legislation and bring it to President Barack Obama, a frustrated Graham seemed to want to flip that process around.

"I urge the president to write a bill and see if he can get another Republican, see if he can convince the 16 Democrats who voted no last time," Graham said bitterly. "Let him do some heavy lifting here on immigration....Write a bill and send it to me. I'll be glad to look at it."

Among Senate Republicans, Graham has been essentially alone in working with the White House on immigration and climate change issues. But he ridiculed suggestions that he would be the key vote to win passage of major legislation on those fronts.

A central point to Graham’s immigration reform is amnesty. He would allow illegals to pay a fine, no doubt paid for with money earned illegally and at the expense of American workers, and then he would welcome them with open arms. Graham belongs to the “illegals do jobs that American’s don’t want to do” club. The real story is that American employers would rather pay illegals under the table, thus avoiding the regulation and taxes that is inherent in the hiring of Americans. It works like this:

The general contractor for ABC Builders hires a subcontractor who supplies the manpower to build your home. He pays the subcontractor in a single check, payable to the subcontractor, who then takes it to Amscot or some such similar place and cashes it. From the cash the subcontractor keeps his cut and then passes out the rest in cash to the workers. The workers are often paid right at or less than minimum wage, and there is no withholding for any of the taxes the rest of us pay. The contractor isn’t breaking the law because he didn't hire the illegals, the subcontractor did.

Look at any home being built in Florida and you will notice that the majority of the workers are immigrants and rarely, if ever, speak English. It wasn’t always like that. A man could earn a good living in construction but no builder is going to pay a starting wage of $15 to $18 an hour (plus, plus, plus) when he can get away with $7 an hour and not have to worry about paying his part of social security, Medicare, unemployment, etc.

If illegals are allowed to enter and work in the country legally, their wages will eventually near those of other Americans doing the same job.  In the meantime, American workers are sitting on the bench and wages as a whole are being suppressed.  But, allowing immigrants to enter the country should be based on filling a need in the host country. We don’t have a need to import construction workers. Further, I wouldn’t be surprised if the same couldn't be said of other industries if the employers would simply pay a decent wage.

But Graham isn’t thinking of the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs to illegal immigrants. They are not his concern. Somebody should let Sen. Graham know that American workers are our concern. If he wants to act contrary to the interests of American workers he should do it from the Democrat side of the aisle. And he can take his Cap & Trade with him.

But back to Crist. Graham’s policies are bad for America and bad for Florida. If Graham is an example of the kind of senator Crist aspires to be we all need to work to see to it that Charlie Crist never sees the Senate floor.