Immigration Reform; Explain It To Me Again, Marco?

Without going too deeply into the weeds, I’d like to make an observation regarding American Heritage’s analysis of their estimated staggering cost of current immigration reform efforts.

All out assault by everyone from Democrat vote-seekers to Establishment Republicans, to big business interests to the Wall Street Journal editorial board has resulted in the study being pretty much discredited (the politically correct determination). Current “wisdom” is that eventual citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants now allegedly “residing in the shadows” will produce an economic boom for America. The Heritage study suggested precisely the opposite. Eventually added costs in the trillions are predicted as the cost of government benefits for the new citizens will wildly outrun any expected added revenue to the Treasury.

The new citizens will generate so much wealth by their talents and the taxes they will pay that life in America will be forever beautiful for everyone, reform advocates suggest.

My first thought is, then why not annex Mexico? Will all the talent that resides there and all the potential tax revenue just waiting for us to collect, who could object . . . except maybe some soreheads in Mexico who liked having the power their country’s sovereignty granted them?

But wait! Isn’t one of the features for business in this country the low wages it is able to pay for illegal immigrants to do the work Americans won’t do?

Well,yes, one might say, but when they become citizens their pay will be increased. Well, if that’s so, won’t their fellow Americans maybe be more willing to do the work they hadn’t wanted to do? And, as the wages for the “new” Americans increases,what’s the advantage to business. And, if wages don’t increase, will the new Americans want to continue to do the work the old ones didn’t want to do?

And, with all that talent the new Americans are reputed to have, won’t they be eager to compete for the better jobs with the even higher pay, that the “older” Americans were willing to do? How will that help the unemployment problem we now have?

And what about all that reputed skill and talent anyway?

It seems to me that there’s some disconnect between current reality and the rhetoric of the “pro-immigration reform” devotees. If all those  folks now living in the shadows became citizens today, it is suggested that revenue from the taxes they’d pay would skyrocket and the cost of new benefits they’d get would be small relative to their increased contribution to the US economy.

I don’t understand how that would work. Right now, the overwhelming  percentage of these illegals are working in the lowest paying jobs in our economy…that’s one reason Americans don’t want to do those jobs. The benefits of “unemployment” provided to Americans is considerably greater than any economic benefit to them if they did those jobs.

So…if the illegals suddenly became ‘legals”, I think it’s fair to say, the wages they’re paid for the jobs they’re doing would not be significantly increased, either immediately or in the foreseeable future. They would, however, become immediately eligible for all of the low income benefits provided to American citizens…the earned Income tax credit, housing and childcare subsidies, healthcare, and more.

And, what additional taxes would they pay, which would so greatly contribute to the US economy as claimed? At their income levels, these new citizens would certainly fall in the 40% or so who pay no federal income tax and we are now assured that they already pay into social security (that’s one of the claimed “injustices” of their current condition…they pay into but do not receive the benefits). They also already pay sales taxes and the built in levies like phone bill taxes, etc.

This is why we need guys like Chuck Schumer and Marco Rubio. Us knuckleheads are just too dumb to understand.      DLH

0

0