At the end of the day the big question is:do we want construction (or apples, or clean hotel rooms, etc) to cost more and the unemployment rate to go down or do we want to bring in immigrants?...or I suppose more specifically, where do we draw the line between the two.
I generally lean towards the let sh**t get more expensive and allow some poor Americans to make some good money, but I tend to like Mexicans more than American poor people so I'm kind of torn.
That is the unmentioned aspect of the story. The only way for prices to rise is because it means people are paying more to get the same amount of work done. It is therefore a "laborer's market", enabling them to demand higher wages or take a higher wage from people just as desperate for that labor. The work will get done once wages rise enough to pull workers into that field.
Economic (GDP growth) is often times closely linked to population numbers and population growth when all other factors are equalized. More people engaging in more transactions, means higher GDP. Wage growth, and middle class expansion is inversely related to population when all other factors are equalized because it boils down to supply and demand but of labor not of goods. And growth doesn't always equate to wage growth and middle class expansion as we have seen and it is more prone to wild swings of expansion and contraction because it has a weak base of consumption and relies heavily on consumer debt to compensate for the low and declining wages. Growth and productivity are heavily correlated as well, but productivity means getting more done for less cost, and when applied to labor that means low wages. These lower wages mean a smaller middle class and a weaker base of consumption.
Growth and productivity are important, but they have to be balanced with rising wages and expansion of the middle class. The modern Democratic Party's answer to balance this out with massive immigration levels, is to 1) raise the minimum wage and 2) fill the employment gap that 1 would create against such a backdrop with increased spending. One has to give the Democrats credit that they have for longer sought to balance growth with middle class expansion.
The Republicans went hell for lever in quest for growth and productivity without concern for the size of the middle class or wages. Restrictionist Immigration policies have finally closed the circuit for Republicans, enabling them to address demand side concerns about a shrinking middle class, while still remaining generally favorable to growth on tax/regulation policy etc. This is a natural political evolution, based on where Republican voters are coming from now compared to 15 or 30 years ago.
To sum it up in a really simplistic fashion.
Democrats: Demand Side at the top (Gov't Spending) and economic growth from the bottom up (More Immigration)
Republicans: Growth from the Top (lower taxes/regulations to spur investment) and demand side from the bottom (Less immigration).
The sunbelt is built on cheap labor and free trade, and its commercial elite worships at the alter of GDP growth and productivity, and loathes the concept of trade unions for example, as well as anything that hinders expansion of the workforce or raises labor costs. Sunbelt style republicanism (originating in sunbelt suburbia), is in decline for two reasons. Its economic philosophy is an incomplete circuit that only addresses growth/supply side, and two it is no longer dominant numerically in the GOP primaries, since their politics have diversified and legions of lower middle class people have joined the Party in the Midwest, South Central and Appalachian parts of the country.
Ironically, Pbrower got it right several years ago when he said the Midwest won't vote Republican "because they want higher wages". And immigration is the path of least resistance to achieve that, since well it is kind of hard to justify minimum wages, direct subsidies or what have you to a bunch of limited gov't conservatives.
