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Yahoo!Santa Barbara County Supervisors have just approved the spending of taxpayer dollars to provide farmworkers transportation until 2010, even though the report from SMOOTH clearly showed that the program is waste of our money. Santa Barbara County spent $100,000 and Santa Maria city spent $50,000 to purchase nine vans from Kings County for the program. Caltrans gave the county $70,000 to plan the program, and a $3.1 million grant. Santa Barbara County acted like it was not our money.
The reason for the Ag Van Program: The claim is to reduce the number of unlicensed drivers on the road, reduce the number of uninsured vehicles on the road, improve air quality, and use energy more efficiently. Okay, this sounds really good. But why do the workers not have drivers licenses or insurance? Could it be that they are foreign nationals not authorized to work in this country?
I did not hear this question addressed. I did hear that the farmworkers are complaining that the fares are too high. Bend over, taxpayers, they are giving it to us. SMOOTH anticipates that with 15-25 vanpools in operation, passenger fares may pay for approximately half of the program expenses. Half? This was promised to be a self-supporting program.
Hang on to your wallets, this is supposed to be a pilot program.―Annette Meleen
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The big culprit here are the farmers that are hiring illegal immigrants. It comes as no suprise that they are getting the rest of us to subsidize them. After all one of them is a county supervisor.
Brook, if you won't hire Americans or legal immigrants to do your work then the least you can do is pay for the illegal's ride.
Gordo (anonymous profile)
July 17, 2008 at 12:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Good point Gordo, and I'd like to add something else: I keep hearing about how the hiring (exploitation) of these workers is helping our economy but how do we know that these farmers are passing on their savings to us?
Here is another question: Since the pro-open borders/exploitation crowd says that our economy would collapse (as if it hasn't already) without unlimited amounts of cheap labor flooding into the U.S., I would assume that they would be saying that we need X-amount of workers per X-amount of American consumers. How do they address the fact that the numbers or cheap labor workers coming in to the U.S. far outnumber the growth rate of the American consumer?
What will happen when the base population of the U.S. is impovershed and there are only a few people with a decent education and middle-class status? Answer: Look to any third-world country with all of their suffering and social unrest.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
July 17, 2008 at 6:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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