MARK MY WORDS
THE WESTERN BORDER
BY MARK WARDEN

Due to the myriad of problems caused by immigrants moving to Southern Nevada - traffic congestion, rising crime, expanding welfare programs and government-sector largesse - there is a clamor in support of closing the borders. I agree, and think we should start with our California border.

Nevada should also put restrictions on those emigrating from other socialist havens such as Canada, Massachusetts, Vermont and Oregon.

Most complaints center around illegal Mexican immigrants coming to Nevada. Americans love to wax patriotic and argue that these immigrants are stealing jobs from us locals, crowding our schools and emergency rooms, and diluting our great culture.

Some of that is true. The question is how best to address the so-called problems. It's simple. Eliminate the freebies: emergency health care, education, school lunches and all other welfare subsidies and "entitlements." Just as the stray cat will revisit your back porch if you continue to leave a saucer of milk, people of all backgrounds will take the easy route and accept hand-outs - if you provide them. 

We should welcome anyone willing to work for his earnings, pay his way, contribute to the economy, and pay his taxes like everyone else.

An obstacle to slowing immigration is simple macroeconomics - where there is demand, supply will escalate to fill it. In California and Southern Nevada, we have high demand for labor-intensive jobs.

Would you be willing to work outside with a shovel all day long in Las Vegas' 110-degree heat for $9 an hour? We need low-cost, non-union inputs to our production. Immigrants provide that.

With tourism continuing to expand, restaurants and hotels in Nevada have a great need for kitchen workers, dishwashers, housekeeping employees and maintenance men. These jobs are often hard work and low pay.

Particularly in Las Vegas, there is an unmet demand for construction workers. This shortage will be further exacerbated when many of the high-rise condos start construction. 

The fact is that if we didn't have a steady influx of immigrants to fill these positions, some residential developments would screech to a halt. Further, the price of every house, hospital, church, convenience store and strip mall would jump sharply because labor costs are the largest portion in subcontractors' cost of doing business.

Low-cost labor helps keep our economy purring, and as lovers of free markets, we should embrace a less-regulated, freer allocation of resources for industry and business.

But when it comes to borders, Nevada should be more concerned about the one to the West than the one to the South. Our state offices are increasingly being filled by California transplants who believe freebies are more effective than the free market. LW