Earlier this month, I made the case on the Right Angle for a boycott of states whose senators support an amnesty law. I said at the time, “Any senator who authors a law to give amnesty to illegal aliens will have his state ‘boycotted’ until he or she is no longer in office.”
Since then, I have done more research into the economics of two states that would be boycotted. The two authors of the McCain-Kennedy bill, John McCain of Arizona and Teddy Kennedy of Massachusetts, want to provide amnesty to the millions of illegal invaders.
I found it to be quit interesting that Mexico is Arizona’s largest trade partner, buying more than $4.7 billion of Arizona-produced goods in 2005. Perhaps, and it does seem causally related to me, this is the basis of McCain’s irrational rationalization of and for protecting the illegal border crashers. It has long been said, “If it does not make sense, it must make money.”
An article written by Hal Mattern of the Arizona Republic, based on a report done by Edward McWilliams of D.K. Shiffler & Associates, provides some important information about tourism in Arizona.
“In 2001, when tourism was battered by a slumping economy and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, 27.1 million people visited the state and spent $11.58 billion.” When the article was written in July 2003, a financial recovery was in progress, and according to the report, “26.9 million tourists visited Arizona last year and spent $12.01 billion”. Don’t forget that these are inflated dollars. “The report, prepared for the Arizona Office of Tourism, found that, although fewer people visited the state in 2002 than a year earlier, on average they stayed longer and spent more money.”
Now as to Massachusetts and its tourism: According to Massachusetts Cultural Council 2005, 25.7 million tourists came to Massachusetts from out of state. That’s pretty close to the Arizona tourism numbers. Since it is difficult to obtain spending by tourists in Massachusetts I will reasonably assume it is similar to Arizona per tourist.
On to the bottom line:
As one can readily see from the tourist industry cash flow, a boycott would be easy to accomplish. Instead of Arizona, go to New Mexico. And instead of Massachusetts, go to New Hampshire. If you must go, don’t spend more money than necessary. Effectively, we should only pass through Arizona and Massachusetts until the authors of onerous bill are thrown out by voters.
As I said in my before: “Since someone who is not a resident of a particular state cannot directly vote for or against a particular senator, the only recourse in America is for concerned Americans to vote with their wallets.”
I have spoken to a number of anti-illegal-immigration organizations leaders and individuals. They are all in agreement that they would promote this boycott should the McCain-Kennedy bill, or some variation of it, become law. For that matter, they indicated that it would apply to any similar law by any other author.
Furthermore, the general consensus is that this type of boycott will be kept in the arsenal of “We the People” from now on.
