Posted on 11/29/2011 2:12:04 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
Neither 3% nor 6% sounds in the least bit reasonable because you have absolutely no reliable data to back those numbers up - unless, of course, you’re smarter, and more informed, than the Kaiser Foundation, the RAND Corporation, the CBO (under GWB), and on and on and ...etc, etc, etc, all of whom have made serious efforts to quantify the costs and benefits of illegal immigrants and have found that it is almost impossible to do so reliably and without making assumptions about core issues that, if changed slightly, dramatically change the results.
About the only really reliable conclusions seem to be that there is a mismatch between costs incurred and revenues received because the states tend to bear more of the costs, and the federal government to receive more of the revenues, but that the additional revenues to the federal government are not fed back to the states to cover the additional costs the states incur. For example, every year the Social Security Administration holds several billion dollars in a suspense account that represents payroll taxes that cannot be associated with a valid social security number. Those funds are not currently used to reimburse states for the costs they incur; if those funds were so used, then the current imbalance would be rectified, at least to some degree.
That issue is aggravated by the fact that even though federal law prohibits the provision of federal benefits to illegal immigrants, federal law mandates that the states provide various types of benefits to people without regard to any recipient’s immigration status.
So, the only conclusions that can be drawn are, basically, (a) no one knows, and the data have not heretofor been collected to test, whether illegal immigrants pose a net cost or a net benefit to the country, (b) there is a significant mismatch between which level of government incurs expenses and which receives the revenues associated with illegal immigrants, which obscures the issue and makes it much harder to derive any meaningful conclusions about whether illegal immigrants are a net cost or a net benefit to the country as a whole, and (c) the apparent costs of illegal immigrants to state and local governments are aggravated by federal immigration and social entitlements policy, which prohibit illegals from receiving federal benefits but mandate that states provide benefits without regard to immigration status.
A more sensible place to start fixing things, then, has very little to do with draconian, “heartless” policies like thuggish roundups of anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant or Quixotic, idiotic policies like building some trillion-dollar wall along the entire border with Mexico, and has a lot to do with aligning those costs and benefits that do occur and by changing federal law regarding the benefits that states are required to provide and by using excess social security funds that cannot be associated with a social security number to offset the costs that the states incur for providing those services (of course, that would also have the effect of bringing the social security ponzi scheme even closer to bankruptcy than it already is, but that’s a different discussion for a different thread).
Can’t you clowns get through a single post with something more than a reptilian, knee-jerk xenophobia? If you had something more than a welded-shut view to the general run of the commentary by the anti-immigrant cadre here it would have become painfully obvious that the primary aim is a wholesale roundup of anyone and everyone who cannot prove beyond any doubt whatsoever that they are entitled to be in the US - a standard that very few citizens, let alone legal residents, would be able to satsify - and characterizing that sort of a roundup as “thuggish” is perfectly apropos.
If the shoe fits, ....
LOL I’m glad you’re saying it in the open forum so more can see how you feel about us knuckle dragging conservatives.
LLS
“So, Republicans -— instead of insisting that your candidate seek revenge on people who sought freedom and opportunity many, many years ago;”
Read Thomas Sowell from yesterday boortz... you and the pudge ball pedro can GFY!
LLS
All I hear from you are supposed government numbers indicating the positive or negative effects of illegals on the system. You come here illegally and you apply for or receive benefits, you are getting what you are not entitled to because you should not be in the system. Period.
There is a best meaning for the word immigration and that is select the best reject the rest.
Immigration is not a policy of, ok you made it here so now what do we do with you. It is a policy of you think you can hang with the best? We will decide if you pass the test.
Why do I say this? Because you are asking a country to take in an unknown if you accept no controls. Allow this policy to reject the unknown bad or good from other lands that we have no reason to incorporate, until we judiciously allow.
I think the judiciously allow part might be hard for you?
I agree with him...BUT...I know some will “eat their own”(thumping your chest)then wring their hands when Obama takes the oath of office in January 2013
Because informed citizens like to know that garbage being fed to the masses by our media isn't always coming from left wing goons with no audience.
Yeah I suppose so, however I would have just posted a link to Neil’s blather, but that’s just me. Nothing personal.
Here's where I got my figures, straight from the mouths of La Raza. Now what percentage of illegals do you think come here and end up becoming the successful business owner/model illegal citizen families Neal throws up in order to justify his theory that Republicans ought to "grow up"? I'd be willing to state that more illegals have not assimilated at all (as in not even bothering to learn English, adopt American customs, learn our history, etc.) than have become successful business owners but I'd have as much trouble backing that claim up as Neal would have backing up his. Yet he makes it the centerpiece of his argument.
We should secure the border first. Then cut off federal funding to any sanctuary cities second. Then- work on getting rid of the anchor baby bill. That is the true magnet of illegal immigration. Born here, you are automatically a citizen of the US.
I’m sick of these open borders trolls spouting New York times talking points.
So Neal wouldn’t mind if I were to seek “a better life” by say breaking into and living in his house? Raiding his fridge and so on?
If you used that food to build a successful catering business he'd be OK with it because you made a better life for yourself.
Gee Neal, did it occur to you that, if you legalize them and give them the vote, approximately 70% of these illegals will be voting for this very thing? What an effin' moron you are!
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