The increase in H-2B “temporary” worker visas was also cut out before the Iraq supplemental spending bill was approved. The reason I put the word in scare quotes is that, according to a separate announcement from the Labor Department reported in today’s L.A. Times, “temporary” doesn’t mean what you think it means. Under the pretense of streamlining the bureaucratic procedures for getting an H-2B visa (for non-agricultural work, like waitresses, crab-meat pickers, and whatnot), DoL has redefined through regulation the meaning of “temporary” from the current 10 months to three years. In the words of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, “Sometimes temporary work is not confined to one year.”

Or, as Humpty Dumpty told Alice, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”