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Cato Daily Dispatch for December 8, 2003

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(Links to outside sources were active as of the date of this dispatch; however, not all news sources maintain links to current stories indefinitely. Some links also may require registration.)

Bush Signs Medicare Bill

"President Bush today signed a $400 billion overhaul of the Medicare old-age health system that adds prescription drug coverage, but Democrats who say the bill is inadequate vowed a new battle to 'take back our Medicare.'" Reuters reports.

Democrats criticized the bill, saying it fails to provide adequate coverage and allows drug companies to benefit at the expense of senior citizens. They vowed new efforts to revise the legislation and to make Medicare an issue in next year's national elections.

In a recent statement, Michael Tanner, director of health and welfare studies, wrote: "Any attempt to actually reform Medicare has been stripped out of this bill or so watered down as to be unrecognizable. Proposals to give seniors more choices and add elements of market-based competition to the program have been reduced to a tiny pilot project that doesn't even start until 2010. Even highly touted proposals for Health Savings Accounts have been weakened with restrictions and limitations that will severely limit the number of people who can take advantage of them."

Arizona Congressmen Hold News Conference on Immigration, Border Issues

This morning, Arizona Reps. Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake held a Capitol Hill news conference regarding The Border Security and Immigration Improvement Act of 2003, legislation that would allow some undocumented residents to become legal residents and give temporary visas to seasonal farm workers who live in Mexico but sometimes work in the United States.

The news conference comes just days after Mexico's foreign minister expressed frustration over his government's failure to secure a new immigration agreement with the United States.

"'The best way to negotiate an immigration accord with the United States is by emphasizing the need to reach an equilibrium between US labor needs and the supply here,' Luis Ernesto Derbez said" last Thursday, The Boston Globe reports.

In "Mexican Workers Come Here to Work: Let Them!" Daniel T. Griswold, associate director of Cato's Center for Trade Policy Studies, writes that "migration from Mexico is driven by a fundamental mismatch between a rising demand for low-skilled labor in the U.S. and a shrinking domestic supply of workers willing to fill those jobs. . . . Mexican migrants provide a ready source of labor to fill that gap. Yet immigration law contains virtually no legal channel through which low-skilled immigrant workers can enter the country to meet demand. The result, predictably, is illegal immigration and all the black market pathologies that come with it."

Chinese Premier Raises Rhetoric on Taiwan

"Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao warned that Beijing will 'never tolerate' an independent Taiwan and accused the island's leaders of planning a referendum as a cover to break away from China," The Associated Press reports.

"Wen was asked to comment on the referendum that Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian said he will call on March 20 so the Taiwanese people can vote on whether to formally demand that China remove hundreds of missiles aimed at the island."

Cato specialists Ted Galen Carpenter and James A. Dorn say Wen may hit some bumps during his stay in the United States.

For example, some members of Congress threaten tariffs unless the renminbi is dramatically revalued. The War on Terrorism has solidified U.S.-China relations, but that solidarity could be tested not only by protectionism but also by cross-Strait tensions over the Taiwan government's flirtation with independence.

Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org