Larry Kudlow‘s latest column posted at The Daily Caller urges Republican congressional candidate David Brat to apply his free-market economics to the most high-profile issue in his recent primary win over U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Listening to David Brat on election night, following his upset win over Eric Cantor in Virginia’s seventh congressional district, I heard a principled, free-market, pro-growth individual who is going to make an excellent Republican House member.
Mr. Brat, the Randolph-Macon economics professor, talked about pro-growth tax reform, spending limits, and entitlement reform. He wants to end the congressional bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and return them to the private sector. He opposes corporate cronyism in Washington. He’ll have no more special favors for the K Street crowd. He emphasizes the importance of the rule of law and property rights, which are so essential to our free-market system.
In other words, Brat seems to be saying that free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. My kinda guy.
Kudlow goes on to write that he wishes Brat would apply the same principles to federal immigration policy.
And as an economist, in fact a free-market economist, Mr. Brat surely knows that immigration reform will not lower wages and eliminate jobs for native Americans. Other immigration opponents routinely use this argument. But it is false. It is unproven.
A new study from the University of California-Davis and Colgate University strongly rebuts this position. The researchers write: “A lot of people have the idea there are a fixed number of jobs. But immigrants can boost productivity of the overall economy, because then the pie grows and there are more jobs for other people as well, and there is not a zero-sum tradeoff between natives and immigrants.”