Concerning Illegal Immigration (Vanity)

Perversely, it makes a lot of money for the rest of us. These workers are paying into the SS system and have no way of claiming benefits later on, as their id's are fake. So, in actual fact, we all benefit.

Actually we don't. Illegals pay about $7 billion into Social Security annually but their net cost to the Federal Treasury including this $7 billion dollar contribution is a $10 billion dollar withdrawal. They are a huge burden for taxpayers. Here is a great analysis:

The High Cost of Cheap Labor

The study above only examines costs at the Federal level. The real big ticket items like education, prisons and health care hit at the state level. About a quarter of all the illegal aliens live in California and net of the taxes they pay the cost to California of illegal aliens is about $9 billion per year. Multiplying that number by four would give a rough idea of the total cost at the state level.

And this is before we consider the cost of wage erosion for legal workers. George Borjas, a leading researcher in this area and a Harvard labor economist recently pegged that number substantially over $100 billion in lower wages for lower income Americans.

The employers benefit from the illegals but the rest of us pay. Illegal labor is subsidized labor.

The employers benefit from the illegals but the rest of us pay. Illegal labor is subsidized labor.

Kwillcox, you're exactly right about the net benefit to society. Not only does our government keep these social security payments that are never claimed, but the entire economy benefits because of lower labor costs. I don't care whether it's the employer that keeps the profit and goes an buy's a new boat, or passes it along to consumers in the form of lower prices, or passes it on to the shareholders - it's a win win win for consumers and our economy.

P.S. I wouldn't give much credence to cites to CIS.ORG. That website is a front for F.A.I.R. which is a radical anti-immigrant/eugenics/Planned Parenthood/population control group. In fact, Mark Kirkorian, who is part of the F.A.I.R. group is or was the executive director of CIS. These facts are sure to upset some on the other side, but they are the facts.

I'm willing to consider numbers from other sources. Why don't you show us some? Would you have us believe that illegals pay $7 billion into Social Security but don't impose any costs on taxpayers? I doubt many thinking people are going to accept that. Just to get the ball rolling, they account for almost 30% of our Federal prison population.

The National Chamber of Commerce is a big supporter of illegal immigration as are the Club for Growth, the CATO Institute and the Manhattan Institute. If the numbers are such a big win win win for all of us taxpayers why are they not tooting that horn instead of floating half truths about social security contributions without mentioning any expenditures or costs?

Your accusations against FAIR are old hat and have long since been discredited. I'm not going to bother to do it again. They are a main stream organization with a political agenda of restricting immigration which is in sync with the beliefs of the majority of the American people.

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