by James Glaser
August 18, 2005

I was at the County Fair this weekend, and we had a community dinner. I watched as the van from the Nursing Home drove up and six residents in wheel chairs, and six workers got out. The workers pushed these people down the hill and across the field to the dinner, and they all had a good time. I thought about how much work it was to bring these people out to the fair, and how much they appreciated it. Then today I was reading an article about Mexicans wanting to work here, and I tied my thoughts about the older people coming to our dinner with those south of the border wanting to work here, and this is what I came up with.

The Tucson Citizen reports today about a survey the Pew Hispanic Center did down in Mexico. They found that "More than 40 percent of Mexican adults would move to the U.S. if they could, and 1 in 5 say they would do so illegally if necessary."

The population of Mexico is over 106 million. I don't know how that works out in adults, but it does mean that many million more Mexicans are thinking about coming up here to live and work.

The same report also said, "More than half of Mexicans say they would be inclined to come if the U.S. established a temporary worker program." Washington is working on that right now, and you have to know that it won't be just Mexicans who will take advantage of that program when ever it is implemented. Now we are talking about tens of millions of people coming to our country.

It makes you wonder what this is all about. Right now there are millions of "baby boomers" starting to retire all at the same time and there will be more every year, for the next twenty years. That means in a short time, millions of those boomers are going to be going into nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Who do you think is going to take care of them?

Well I doubt if that will be your children or mine. They are not going to work for the wages that they pay in those places, so we are going to need a lot of workers, who will work for almost nothing, and you know what, you better get out there and start taking Spanish language classes. If you are in that Nursing Home, and the night staff is on, and you need help, you better be able to communicate with those people taking care of you.

So, in a matter of a few years, we are going to be awash in "guest workers," and they are going to change America. This won't affect the rich, because they will be able to afford high end facilities, but you and I are going to the cattle pens. I know that sounds just terrible, but Washington is doing nothing to plan for this, and in a few short years, there are going to be more people needing beds than the number of beds available.

Ether they build huge places that will handle thousands, kind of like how prisons are set up, or they are going to tax our children and grandchildren to the max.

I know nobody wants to think about things like this, and I don't either, but the bulge in America's population caused by the Post War Baby Boom is for real, and we are coming to that point in life, that we will need help if we want to stay alive. That will put a real crimp on resources, and the United States is going to have to shift priorities to pay for our care. Even if we do everything on the cheap, it is going to take a big chunk out of our budget.

It is a real shame that we are so far in debt now, because we are getting to that "pay as you go" situation, because soon we won't be able to borrow any more. There is a limit you know.