America's illegal-immigrant debate had run dangerously short of new arguments, but a brave newspaper columnist decided to think so far outside the box that the box itself could no longer be used as a viable point of reference:
Undocumented aliens make American citizens fat.
That's the remarkable conclusion of "former economics professor" Alfred Tella, who writes in Wednesday's Washington Times that the influx of illegal Latinos in the United States may well be the cause of America's obesity epidemic ... apparently because cheap illegal housecleaners and gardeners have cruelly robbed middle-class and wealthy Americans of their only chance at exercise.
"Though they can be found in various industries and occupations, illegal workers are employed in large numbers on household tasks that most Americans once did for themselves, such as cleaning the house and taking care of the yard," Tella explains.
"Some are employed directly by householders as maids, house cleaners and yard workers, and others work as employees of companies that provide services to residential customers. A number of the householders who hire illegal workers can be counted among the more than 60 million obese adults in America."
Bingo!
Tella's bold theory doesn't quite explain away how low-paying jobs have traditionally gone to ultra-low-cost black slaves and then to successive waves of ethnic immigrants -- German, Chinese, Irish, Italian, Puerto Rican, etc. -- and will soon go entirely to robot slaves. But surely there's a scientific reason to explain how only illegal Mexican laborers make American citizens so horrifyingly obese.
Like nanny-state liberals from San Franciso to Santa Monica, Tella believes he can get Americans in shape by simply legislating the free market until it's basically socialism.
By removing a labor supply, Americans will have no choice but to quit hiring help and getting on a low-fat, low-sodium diet with the constant supervision of doctors. Just as the steady de-legalization of cigarettes has stopped cancer and heart disease in the United States, de-de-legalizing undocumented Latino workers will end the tragic obesity epidemic that has left most Americans outrageously fat and absolutely powerless to do anything about it.
"With less competition from cheap illegal labor, legal workers would benefit. And some householders who enjoyed access to cheap immigrant labor would no longer be willing or able to pay the higher wages resulting from a restricted immigrant labor supply," Tella writes.
"To the extent Americans adjusted their lifestyle to a reduction in the supply of immigrant labor by doing more household tasks, obesity would decline and health would improve. It would also be a financial boon. Householders would save on labor costs and obesity-related medical and other expenses, and taxpayers would save a bundle to boot."
How right he is.
-and all this time I was blaming the deep fried twinkies, how wrong I was!!!!
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