Summary
Senator Bernie Sanders criticized Elon Musk over his support for the H-1B visa program, calling it a tool for corporations to replace good-paying American jobs with lower-wage foreign labor.
Sanders cited data showing U.S. companies laid off 85,000 American workers between 2022 and 2023 while hiring 34,000 H-1B visa holders, arguing this undermines U.S. competitiveness.
Musk, who credits the visa program for his success, defended it, stating he’s ready to “go to war” over the issue.
The debate has divided MAGA conservatives, exposing rifts within Trump’s coalition.
Bernie always was MAGA but not for the slogan but actually to improve people’s lives.
Well take away the “again” because America never had what he wants.
We did have a 90% tax bracket… and Roe v. Wade, and Presidents who were presumably accountable to the justice system, and elections that people generally accepted the outcome, and much less toxic disconnect between political parties, and media that wasn’t all owned by a handful of billionaires, and we had the Fairness Doctrine, and Citizens United.
So yah getting back to that basic level of functionality would be nice actually.
Whenever I think of “MAGA” I think of the strong middle class that characterized post-war America and wonder wtf these people are actually doing.
I hear you, but that strong post-war middle class was overwhelmingly white due to our racist systems. As much as I like the things you’ve mentioned, we need to stop looking at our past and look at the future.
Cool so we’ll do it again but for everyone this time it’ll be rad
Yeah but who do we take the stuff from then?
The billionaires?
nom nom nom nom nom
They don’t have enough money to even pay one year’s budget though. They are very rich, but we spend 6.3 trillions
There are 801 billionaires in the US with a wealth of 6.22 trillions - even if you take every single penny you come up short
https://inequality.org/article/updates-billionaire-pandemic/
Damn, guess we’ll have to cut the “defense” budget, oh nooo. Maybe that’ll encourage them to pass their audits.
Those programs, while imperfectly implemented, also showed that they really did improve the lives of the people who were able to gain the advantages of them. We need to look to what those programs did well and fix and rework what those programs did poorly.
90% was the top rate, in practice the rich during that time paid less tax than today because they had huge loopholes
Top 1% paid only 16.9% of their income in tax compared to 25.9% now (of the total amount, you can be in a higher bracket and your total percentage will always be lower than your bracket)
US has a lot of dark history for sure, but being middle class wasn’t as bad as it is right now.
Is anyone middle class anymore? I mean like doctors and lawyers sure, but for the average worker it’s out of reach.
Tech workers are one of the few groups that can get a 4 year degree, work hard and be able to afford a house, health insurance, a few cars, annual vacations, education for their kids and have a decent retirement. Granted, it’s not all of tech and it isn’t guaranteed, but it’s fucked that everyone who works can’t get this basic shit (car as basic shit is debatable but much of the US is designed around cars). But Phony Stark is desperate to knock the techies down a peg or two because I guess he needs more money to fund his king of mars fantasy? What a fucking dick.
He’s intentionally reducing the opportunities for well-paid work in the country. What an asshole. The whole immigration process needs to be streamlined so people don’t even need to deal with this H1B indentured servitude bullshit.
Visas being tied to an employer and getting only 1-3 months to get a new job if you get laid off is fucking awful. If we had the same number of tech workers here on visas but they had real mobility then it would be an entirely different story.
And to add insult to injury, Elmo didn’t even follow the visa rules when he started in the US. If he weren’t a billionaire he could legit get deported for breaking immigration laws in the past.
A tale as old as time. Or at least the past 50 years. Undocumented immigrant gets legal, turns and hates undocumented immigrants.