What Do You Think of This? - Wayne,MI

I'm all for prisoners working to pay back the tax payer for room, board, health care and eduction. It would have to be a job they could do without jeopardizing the rest of the community. I am not for low pay for those that are here legally in this county. They deserve a living wage. I am for those on welfare working in such positions but once again it would have to be a living wage. If it isn't the funnest job they have the opportunity to go find a job they do like.

T.:

They had prisioners making license plates for the longest time...

then they felt persecuted....now they have TVs, exercise rooms, libraries and access to healthcare and education....they get treated better than our homeless...

So while it's a wonderful concept - some do-gooder lawyer will have a problem with the "slave wages" and tell the government that they needs to be paid for their services and given extra allowances....

Just from the consumer side...I don't think I'd trust products manufactured by prisoners. I mean...where's the incentive for quality?

I think Hitler had this idea about 70 years ago.

ETA: Some states still have inmates making license plates, for those who may be confused. They also build & sell office furniture, man call centers, make & mix the pint for roads, and a host of other industries....

Third world =/= appropriate use = Developing Nation

So you're suggesting that U.S. companies be forced to use either U.S. citizens, people here legitimately in the U.S., or convicts in our prisons. They shouldn't be allowed to outsource at all. Mmm hm. So no more free enterprise or capitalism?

Not to mention the very slippery slope this would set up. It's too much "government in our business" already and this would be inviting them in even more. I'm not one for giving away liberties.

Ok, I get where you are coming from with this, however we outsource to lower the bottom line and lowering the bottom line means we as consumers pay less. Some of the factory based jobs I would rather see go to the millions of people who have been laid off from their factory jobs due to this issue. It costs far more to run a factory in the US than it does in China or India ect. We can pay someone in China $3 USD or less where somone else would require minimum wage ($5.75 is the average I think) up to $10/hr for the same job not to mention overhead and cost of materials. Based on all of the money/saving related things here we need that bottom line pretty low don't we? I also point out that many of the other outsourced positions require people to have our personal information such as SSN, Birthdate, Full Name, Credit Scores/Reports, Credit Card info and other identifying factors ... would you want an illegal immigrant or prisoner to have this information? I am not totally comfortable my BANK has it and they have been fully vetted! No, I am not a fan of outsourcing ... yep got laid off because of it, however I am not going to fall in line with giving those jobs to immigrants or prisoners. Like I said, I respect where you are coming from but I think the people who were working 5yrs ago need their jobs back before we focus on prisoners/immigrants.

It won't work.
Prisoners and immigrants don't have the skill set for the tech jobs that have been off-shored to India.
We need to make off shoring illegal and quit importing a cheap labor servant class.
At the rate we're going it won't be long before we're all working for 3rd world wages.
Prisoners use to make license plates.
Don't they do that anymore?
And I'd like to know exactly how free enterprise survives by hiring labor kept cheap (Chinese) through communism?
Our we to the point where capitalism can't stand on it's own anymore?
Our 'free market' is somehow kept free by exploiting a market that's not free at all?

I may be wrong, but I think the reason for outsourcing is because of hjgh taxes on companies here vs. other countries.

i think the politicians should read your post and take it to heart!

Ive ran my big mouth about this all day :) I agree with every body!

The state of GA was complaining that the new immigration laws were keeping share croppers (sp?) out and that the summer and fall produce was going to "rot on the vines" and farmers were going to loose their shirts b/c "no US citizen wants to do this kind of work".

The FIRST thing I thought of was - why don't they have the prisoners do it? Not sure why... maybe a flight risk thing??

I think we should bring all the manufacturing and call center jobs back here.

We should do away with the insurance companies and third party billing companies and have a comprehensive and reasonable payment guide for all medical procedures. Medicare/Medicaid would be available as a supplemental for people with chronic illnesses.

There should be a sufficient amount of manufacturing and call center jobs to accomodate all the now unemployed insurance and call center workers (with probably a few additional jobs for other unemployed people). The pay would not have to be super high because no-one would have to be forking over 1/3 of their income for health insurance.

Without having to pay insurance premiums, people's wages could be reduced somewhat which should trickle down making the cost of producing items cheaper. These items would then be cheaper to buy here and also to export which would help the economy overall.

Woohoo! I solved unemployment and the healthcare issue and I didn't need to have any committee's or sub-committees to help me. ,g>