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The Time is Now: President Obama Meets with Business Leaders on Immigration Reform

Valerie Jarrett
November 05, 2013
08:20 PM EST
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet with business leaders to discuss immigration reform to bolster U.S. economic growth, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Nov. 5, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Today, I joined the President, Vice President and senior Administration officials for a meeting at the White House with a group of top U.S. business leaders to discuss the importance of commonsense immigration reform to bolster U.S. economic growth, and improve the climate for business, and job creation. These leaders shared with the President their desire to see our broken immigration system fixed, both because it is the right thing to do, and because it will be good for the U.S. economy.
In addition to the 7.5 million jobs we have created in the U.S. over the past three and a half years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), over the next two decades, the bipartisan bill that has already passed the Senate would grow our economy by an additional $1.4 trillion, and shrink our deficits by nearly $1 trillion. The Senate bill would modernize our legal immigration system.
With common sense immigration reform, American colleges, universities, and businesses can attract the brightest minds in the world to our shores to start new businesses, and spur economic growth for all Americans. And, reform would also make sure everyone plays by the same rules, providing a pathway to earned citizenship for those who are living in the shadows, including passing a background check, learning English, paying taxes and a penalty, and getting in line behind everyone else.
President Barack Obama, with Vice President Joe Biden, talk with the media a the start of a meeting with business leaders to discuss immigration reform to bolster U.S. economic growth, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Nov. 5, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
In recent weeks, we’ve seen important progress with more and more House Republicans announcing their support for moving forward with immigration reform legislation. For the first time, we are seeing some House Republicans join with House Democrats to endorse a bill similar to the bipartisan bill the Senate has already passed. We have also heard that House Republicans may introduce their own bills. Because ultimately, House Republicans will decide whether or not reform becomes a reality, we are eager to hear their ideas on the path forward. The President stands ready to work with both parties to finish the job.
The vital need for immigration reform is recognized by Americans from across the spectrum, including the business community, faith communities, law enforcement, labor unions, and more. It is the right thing for our country, and an important step forward for our economy. Given this broad and deep support, we hope to see the House pass legislation on this issue by the end of the year, to fix our nation’s immigration system to allow us live up to our rich history as a proud nation of immigrants.
For more information:
- Learn more about commonsense immigration reform
- White House White Board: Why Immigration Reform Is Good for the Economy
First Lady Michelle Obama Celebrates Diwali at the White House

Megan Slack
November 05, 2013
07:08 PM EST
First Lady Michelle Obama joins students for a Bollywood Dance Clinic in the State Dining Room of the White House, Nov. 5, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
Today, First Lady Michelle Obama welcomed guests to the White House for a Diwali celebration. The celebration started with the First Lady suprising local students at a Bollywood dance clinic and trying out some moves herself.
Then the First Lady spoke during a reception in the East Room:
“We’ve celebrated this holiday here at the White House every year since Barack took office. And there’s a reason why we've done that,” she said.
When we say that we want to make the White House the “people’s house,” we mean all people. We mean that we want to honor and embrace all of the many cultures and faith traditions that make us who we are as Americans. And Diwali is very much one of those traditions.
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The map that shows where America came from: Fascinating illustration shows the ancestry of EVERY county in the US Census data shows heritage of 317 million modern Americans Clusters show where immigrants from different nations chose to settle.

Largest ancestry grouping in the nation are of German descent with almost 50 million people African American or Black is the second largest grouping with just over 40 million people

Almost 20 million people claim to have 'American' ancestry for political reasons and because they are unsure of their family's genealogy

By JESSICA JERREAT

PUBLISHED: 18:15 EST, 1 September 2013 | UPDATED: 12:33 EST, 2 September 2013

A truly captivating map that shows the ancestry of everyone of the 317 million people who call the melting pot of America home can now be seen on a U.S. Census Bureau map.

For decades, the United States opened its doors and welcomed with open arms millions of immigrants who all arrived through New York's Ellis Island in the hope of a better life in America.

Indeed, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty in New York's harbor reads 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free' and the fascinating map identifies the truly diverse nature of the United States in the 21st century.

Although the 2010 census left out questions about ethnicity, this map shows how it looked in 2000, according to Upworthy.

Melting pot: This map shows the ethnic heritage of Americans

49,206,934 Germans

By far the largest ancestral group, stretching from coast to coast across 21st century America is German, with 49,206,934 people. The peak immigration for Germans was in the mid-19th century as thousands were driven from their homes by unemployment and unrest.

The majority of German-Americans can now be found in the the center of the nation, with the majority living in Maricopa County, Arizona and according to Business Insider, famous German-Americans include, Ben Affleck, Tom Cruise, Walt Disney, Henry J. Heinz and Oscar Mayer.

Indeed, despite having no successful New World colonies, the first significant groups of German immigrants arrived in the United States in the 1670s and settled in New York and Pennsylvania.

Germans were attracted to America for familiar reasons, open tracts of land and religious freedom and their contributions to the nation included establishing the first kindergartens, Christmas trees and hot dogs and hamburgers.

41,284,752 Black or African Americans

The census map also identifies, Black or African-American as a term for citizens of the United States who have ancestry in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The majority of African Americans are descended from slaves from West and Central Africa and of course have become an integral part of the story of the United States, gaining the right to vote with the 15th amendment in 1870, but struggling with their civil rights for at least another century.

Predominantly living in the south of the nation where they were brought to work on the cotton plantations and as slaves in the late 18th to mid-19th centuries, Black or African Americans also have sizable communities in the Chicago area of Illinois and Detroit, Michigan.

More...

35,523,082 Irish

Another group who joined the great story of the United States were the Irish and the great famine of the 1840s sparked mass migration from Ireland.

It is estimated that between 1820 and 1920, 4.5 million Irish moved to the United States and settled in the large cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco.

Currently, almost 12 percent of the total population of the United States claim Irish ancestry - compared with a total population of six and a half million for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland today.

Irish residents of note include John F. Kennedy, Derek Jeter and Neil Armstrong and 35,523,082 people call themselves Irish.

31,789,483 Mexican

And from 1990 to 2000, the number of people who claimed Mexican ancestry almost doubled in size to 31,789,483 people.

Those with Mexican ancestry are most common along the Southwestern border of the United States and is largest ancestry in Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, San Diego, Dallas and San Antonio.

26,923,091 English

The next largest grouping of people in the United States by ancestry are those who claim to be English-American.

Predominantly found in the Northwest and West, the number of people directly claiming to be English-American has dropped by 20 million since the 1980 U.S. Census because more citizens have started to identify themselves as American.

They are based predominantly in the northeast of the country in New England and in Utah, where the majority of Mormon immigrants moved in the middle 19th century.

Notable American people with English ancestry are Orson Welles and Bill Gates and 26,923,091 people claim to come from the land of the original Pilgrims.

Chicago Racial Demographics 1910-2000

(View each year's map as a still image.)

Click below to read the article

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/29/chicago-racial-demographi_n_2575921.html

The Town Square

PHOTOS

The Best and Worst of the World's Central Plazas and Squares

MARK BYRNES
OCT 28, 2011

"central plazas and squares play a crucial role in successful urban areas. When they're done right, these spaces act as a focal point for the civic and social life of a city, a place where impromptu gatherings, people watching and even, political discourse all naturally intersect. When designed poorly, though, they can act as a black hole, sucking the life out of a city center."

"The Project For Public Spaces has focused on understanding what's necessary to maintain or improve on these spaces. In 2004, they released their rankings of the best and worst public squares in the world."

Click below to read the rest of the article and view their 10 best and 10 worst public spaces.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2011/10/best-and-worst-worlds-public-plazas-and-squares/360/#slide5

How to Cut the Poverty Rate in Half (It's Easy)

Interesting proposal from the Atlantic to cut poverty in America.

By sending every adult and child $3,000 a year, the government could achieve historic poverty reductions. Think of it as Social Security for all, not just the elderly.

MATT BRUENIG AND ELIZABETH STOKEROCT 29 2013, 3:58 PM ET

In the United States, we are generally told that poverty is a deeply complicated problem whose solution requires dozens of reforms on issues as diverse as public schooling, job training, and marriage.
But it’s not true. High rates of poverty can, as a policy matter, be solved with trivial ease. How? By simply giving the poor money.

Last month, the Census reported that 46.5 million Americans, or 15 percent of the population, lived under the poverty line in 2012. While that number sounds disturbingly high, the total amount of money by which they are in poverty is smaller than you’d think.

In 2012, those 46.5 million impoverished Americans were, collectively, $175 billion dollars below the poverty line. That figure is equivalent to 1.08 percent of the country’s GDP, one-quarter of the country’s $700 billion military budget, and exactly what we spend on Social Security disability benefits. Finding an optimal way to get $175 billion to these 46.5 million people is all that stands in the way of a country with an official poverty rate of zero.

We already do quite a bit to reduce poverty, both officially and unofficially. On the official side of the ledger, Social Security is the biggest factor, having dramatically reduced the rates of elderly poverty since the benefit levels began shooting up in the 1960s. Beyond Social Security, programs like Supplemental Security Insurance, disability insurance, veteran’s benefits, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and unemployment insurance also pump up the incomes of poor people. Without these programs, the official poverty rate would be much higher than 15 percent.

On the unofficial side of the ledger—programs not counted as income for poverty purposes—we have things like SNAP (food stamps), Section 8 housing vouchers, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Child Tax Credit, among others. Had it been counted as income, SNAP alone would have reduced the ranks of officially impoverished by 4 million people last year. Although we don’t have the numbers yet for last year, the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit pulled 9.4 million people out of poverty in 2011, according to the Census’ supplemental poverty measurement.

So we know generally how to bring folks out of poverty. We have a long list of successful programs that already do so. The question still before us is can we do more?

How hard would it be, for instance, to cut official poverty in half?

Using the dataset from the latest Census poverty report, I determined that if we cut a $2,920 check to every single American—adults, children, and retirees—we could cut official poverty in half. Economists consider this sort of across-the-board payment a “universal basic income.” You can think of it as Social Security for all, not just the elderly.

The upside of giving everybody about $3,000 is that it’s a very easy policy to run and a surefire way to cut poverty in half. But it's a large program: it would require about $907 billion in 2012, or 5.6 percent of the nation’s GDP. (In a real implementation, we might exclude the more than 45 million Americans receiving OASI Social Security benefits from a basic income, bringing the cost down substantially.)

Click to Read the entire story in the Atlantic.

theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/how-to-cut-the-poverty-rate-in-half-its-easy/280971/

_______________________________________________

Interesting idea but it is absolutely not easy and it won't happen. Much of America is angry about paying subsidies to the poor and they will never support an additional payout, which of course would be paid for by tax payers.

A much better system would overturn our bewildering number of subsidies for housing, food, medical care, telephones, work training, day care, etc, with a guaranteed job.

I would be perfectly willing to pay for a program that would provide a job for anyone willing and able to work. The government would have to create these jobs, creating an administration largely staffed by the unemployed.

Work would include safeguarding our inner cities, cleaning up the graffiti and trash in cities, etc. This program would also be costly, but would probably not cost a lot more than our current programs and would give the poor a way to contribute and earn their own way.

A major benefit is that it would teach our working poor how to work. At present many of them are defeated - they have no skills that anyone will pay for. And many of them have quit trying.

And what we do with ADC is absurd. We pay for women to have children - and then reward them with housing, welfare, food, and medical care. For a low skilled poorly educated young woman it is absolutely the logical thing to do.

Far better to create a job for these folks. We would have to create a large day care structure for their children to be cared for while they worked.

Back in the Days When Traffic Was Not Heavy

The good old days before cars caused traffic jams.

Courses From Yale - Free

Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.
All lectures were recorded in the Yale College classroom and are available in video, audio, and text transcript formats
Registration is not required
No course credit, degree, or certificate is available through the Open Yale Courses website. However, courses for Yale College credit are offered online through Yale Summer Online including OYC professors John Rogers and Craig Wright."
Learn more.

oyc.yale.edu

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