What do North Carolina and Arizona’s Maricopa County Jail have in common? Both found unique ways to use the color pink, from Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s pink undergarments for jail inmates to North Carolina’s plan to adorn driver’s licenses for DACA illegal immigrants with a noticeable pink stripe. Sheriff Arpaio was sued by the Justice Department and North Carolina’s driver’s licenses may eventually meet the same fate. When states finally work up the courage to revolt against Washington dominance, should pink be the color that unites?
Immigrant interests are worried that the North Carolina licenses might single out illegals. They have bigger things to worry about. DACA beneficiaries are on track to join millions of Americans who make up the Obama underclass, a growing excuse for social spending that we have been warned will be slashed to ribbons by across-the-board cuts.
DREAMers will join the unemployed in the Obama underclass.
Nothing dooms you in this economy like being an unemployed older worker (see: Jobless Older Workers Are Worthless in the Obama Economy) unless you have joined the ranks of the long-term unemployed, jobless for so long that no employer will talk to you. With all the tumult in Washington over mandatory cuts did everyone forget that the unemployment rate is still unforgivably high?
DACA DREAMers eager to cash in on promises of boundless opportunity from their new government are going to discover an ugly secret about how welcoming the real world is when things go bad and money is tight. If they thought work was hard to find before they got their work permits, they are not going to find things much easier when they brandish those permits and identify themselves for who and what they are. DREAMers will end up right behind long-term unemployed Americans as valued members of the Obama underclass, waiting for news of when the next shipment of cash from Washington will arrive in their states.
Why a struggling underclass is vital to the economy.
Actually, the Obama underclass is only vital to Barack Obama’s economy. America’s economy would be a lot better off if it was thriving, but as far as future Democratic votes are concerned, the more Americans in need of a helping hand the better.
Even the White House seems to understand that too many Americans find themselves stuck in the quagmire below the middle class:
Even as we look for ways to reduce deficits over the long term, we must grow the economy in a way that strengthens the middle class and everyone willing to work hard to get into it.¹
While conservatives might blame this problem on the president, for Democrats the Obama underclass excuses all manner of social spending. In the case of across-the-board cuts they have the opportunity to decry the drop in spending and unleash a firestorm of anti-GOP propaganda.
What kind of spending will states miss out on? The White House media mill claims North Carolina will lose teachers, Head Start, work-study jobs, child care, vaccines for kids, nutrition assistance for senior citizens, mental and public health programs, and other social spending.² Similar, threatening laundry lists of soon to be slashed programs have been made available for every state.³
When states revolt, who will feel the anger first?
Who will feel the wrath when states revolt against Washington cutbacks? Will politicians come first, or will states turn on members of the Obama underclass because their dependence on handouts and social programs threaten budgets that are already strained to the breaking point?
Whether or not across-the-board cuts are halted after the fact, public money is in short supply and there is no end in sight to irresponsible federal policymaking. We heard preemptive threats from Homeland Security that it will release criminal illegal immigrants back on our streets. If Washington had been doing its job all along those criminal illegals would already be back on some other country’s streets. States would not have to worry about how to pay for public services to support their less dangerous but still illegal counterparts.
Are North Carolina’s special DACA driver’s licenses a welcome hint of things to come? States have grudgingly gone along with bad federal policymaking because they need their allowances, but when the cash vanishes and states have to bear the brunt of Washington’s foolhardiness revolts will be waiting in the wings. With over half of the nation’s governors belonging to the Republican Party let’s hope that when states revolt, they revolt in the right direction.