October 04, 2000

Give Us Your Skilled, Your Ambitious, Your Entrepreneurial Masses
Florida Vouchers Survive Court Challenge
As Expected, NASA Releases Political Surprise

Give Us Your Skilled, Your Ambitious, Your Entrepreneurial Masses

Congress yesterday overwhelmingly approved legislation to increase the number of visas for highly skilled foreign workers, according to The Washington Post. Hours after the Senate voted 96-to-1 for the bill, the House passed it on a voice vote, and Democrats said President Clinton is expected to sign it.

"Whether it's Silicon Valley . . . or my own state of Michigan, the need for these workers is extraordinarily strong," said Sen. Spencer Abraham (R - Mich.), a principal sponsor of the bill.

The measure would allow the Immigration and Naturalization Service to issue 195,000 "H-1B visas" in each of the next three years for skilled workers from abroad, mainly to satisfy the voracious appetite of the burgeoning high-tech industry. The visas can be extended for up to six years.

In the Cato Handbook for Congress, Dan Griswold and Stephen Moore call for easing immigration laws and expanding quotas for immigrant workers. Julian L. Simon compiles a plethora of immigration trends and facts in the pamphlet "Immigration: The Demographic and Economic Facts." In "Keep Giving Us Your Best and Your Brightest," Moore argues that "immigrants are generally assets to our economy and our culture." In "H-1B Straightjacket: Why Congress Should Repeal the Cap," Griswold explains that "fears that [skilled immigrant] workers cause unemployment and depress wages are unfounded."

Florida Vouchers Survive Court Challenge

A Florida appellate court ruled yesterday that the state could use taxpayer-financed vouchers for students in poor-performing schools who could not afford private school tuition, according to The New York Times.

A three-judge panel of the First District Court of Appeals in Tallahassee ruled unanimously that a trial court erred in March in ruling that the vouchers violated the state Constitution. Lawyers for various teachers' unions and other groups who sued to block the program said they would appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.

The school voucher issue is debated in "Vouchers and Educational Freedom: A Debate," by Joseph L. Bast, David Harmer, and Douglas Dewey. In "What Would a School Voucher Buy?" Executive Vice President David Boaz and R. Morris Barrett explain that $3,000 a year would go a long way in buying a quality education.

As Expected, NASA Releases Political Surprise

Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said they have located the largest ozone hole ever recorded, an area approximately three times the size of the United States, according to CNN.

In a report released today, NASA said satellites observed an 11.5 million square-mile hole -- actually a severe thinning of Earth's protective ozone layer -- last month over Antarctica.

Scientists blamed a combination of the usual suspects -- chloroflourocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-eating chemicals -- and an upper-level wind called the polar vortex, which swirls around Antarctica. This year, the vortex's swirl is bigger than usual, "and so the fact that it's a little bit bigger creates a bigger ozone hole," said NASA's Paul Newman.

In "An October Environmental Surprise?" Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies Patrick Michaels predicted that NASA would announce an "October environmental surprise" that, as in each of President Clinton's victories, can nudge the polls enough to turn close elections into decisive victories. Michaels wrote that alarming ozone depletion would most likely be announced right about the time the administration releases its "National Assessment of Global Warming," which Al Gore can use to his political advantage.

"This is the same agency that discovered life in Martian rocks (later shown to be wrong) right at budget time," Michaels writes, "Now NASA is betting on Gore, who through his years in the Senate rewarded the space program handsomely. In a 1992 budget hearing, Gore announced that global warming should be 'NASA's number one scientific priority,' and the agency has been cashing the checks ever since."

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