Social Security for Mexicans closer to reality (Millions of immigrants to collect benefits)

www.wnd.com ^ | December 11, 2003 | WorldNetDaily

[VU4G10]

The prospect of millions of Mexicans receiving United States Social Security checks is moving closer to reality.

The Gannett News Service reports U.S. and Mexican officials are discussing a "totalization" agreement that would transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in payments south of the border. The plan would allow documented and undocumented immigrants to return home but still collect U.S. benefits.

WorldNetDaily reported the idea to merge both countries' Social Security systems was pushed late last year by Mexican President Vincente Fox as payback from President George W. Bush for failing to secure major new immigration reforms beneficial to Mexico City.

"When the legalization talks began going nowhere, the Mexicans began focusing on this," Maria Blanco, national senior counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, told the Washington Post.

Excerpts from a U.S. Social Security Administration memo dated December 2002 said the agreement "is expected to move forward at an accelerated pace."

The pact is the latest and largest attempt by Washington and Mexico City to ensure that people from one country working in another aren't taxed twice for Social Security benefits. In the first year alone, the agreement is expected to trigger 37,000 claims from Mexicans working in the U.S. legally who paid Social Security taxes but haven't been able to claim their checks, said the memo, prepared by Ted Girdner, the Social Security Administration's assistant associate commissioner for international operations.

Supporters say the proposal would improve the daily lives of Mexican citizens, many of whom are still trapped in poverty a decade after the North American Free Trade Agreement promised prosperity to the nation's 103.4 million people.

"Let's be honest, there are millions of Mexican immigrants contributing to the Social Security system and the U.S. economy," Katherine Culliton, an attorney with the Washington, D.C., office of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, told Gannett. "It's only fair they get back a benefit they deserve that will keep them from dying in poverty."

Critics, as well as some on the Bush administration economic team, worry that adding more beneficiaries would burden an already ailing system, just as American baby boomers begin to retire.

Currently, around 94,000 beneficiaries living abroad have been brought into the U.S. system under the auspices of about 20 international treaties designed to help Americans sent abroad by their employers signed since 1977. The accords are mostly with European countries, but also include Canada and South Korea.

Of the $408 billion distributed in Social Security benefits in 2001, according to Gannett, the federal government paid $173 million to about 89,000 foreigners living abroad.

Opponents contend the number of Mexican beneficiaries added to the fold would dwarf the total numbers from the 20 other countries. One estimate puts the number of Mexicans coming into the system at around 164,000 in the first five years.

Social Security Administration officials estimate about 50,000 Mexicans would collect $78 million in the first year of a U.S.-Mexican agreement. By 2050, the number is predicted to swell to 300,000 Mexicans collecting $650 million in benefits a year.

But that number doesn't include the potentially eligible, undocumented Mexican immigrants – numbering about 5 million, according to federal estimates – a recent General Accounting Office report pointed out.

Accounting for illegals, the agreement could cost U.S. taxpayers $750 million within five years of implementation.

Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, says if Mexicans receive the $8,100 in benefits that Mexican-born retirees in the U.S. currently get, the total expenditure for the program will easily surpass $1 billion annually.

Beyond the cost, Republican lawmakers worry the proposal will fuel further illegal immigration.

"Talk about an incentive for illegal immigration," Gannett quotes Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, as saying. "How many more would break the law to come to this country if promised U.S. government paychecks for life?"

Any "totalization" agreement ultimately reached must be approved by Congress.

[Hoosier-Daddy]

Anyone know what it takes to sue the U.S. government?

[Stopislamnow]

Anyone need a American laborer?

Will work for CASH.

[AD from SpringBay]

This makes me want to wretch! How bad is this mess going to get before the taxpayers decide to do something about it?

[Ron in Acreage]

The sooner it's ruined the better for us who want it privatized. I'd rather keep my 15% and invest it as I see fit. Not some asshole politicians doing it for (against) me. You pay all your life to SS and when you die it's gone. At least private plans would be left to a beneficiary.

[GeronL]

It is time for a tax revolt. But it will take years to organize one, and we should have started a while back.

[org.whodat]

I see another one term BUSH as the result.

[AD from SpringBay]

Abso-freakin-lutely! A tax revolt and a few hundred thousand cash-only jobs. At this point maybe we could go back to barter? Why do people not care about this?

[GeronL]

Why do people not care about this?

Because its not BAD enough, apparently. I still think we should start oeganizing one, and when we reach 35 million members or so, we can announce that if government doesn't shape up, we will shape them down.

[boycott]

Meanwhile, we have soldiers fighting for the best interest of the American people. Mexico, however, refuses to support our troops.

I support "W" in so many ways. I will promise that he WON'T get my vote if he continues to pander to Mexico and every other special interest group.

[philetus]

Is it time yet?

[BenLurkin]

no . . . . No . . . . NO .. . . NO! . . . NO!

[CindyDawg]

Well, I think the best solution is for both nations to stop salivating over these tax dollars and exempt legals from SSI and send the illegals home and tell them to quit cutting in line.

[templar]

How bad is this mess going to get before the taxpayers decide to do something about it?

Like what? Vote for Democrats and Republicans?

[litany_of_lies]

To be perfectly frank, the last few days have been so discouraging I'm tempted to renounce political activism and put my head in the sand (it hurts less that way). The ideas that are being discussed as possibilities are the kinds of things that would have been laughed off the political stage just 10 years ago (DLs for illegals, limits on political but no other kind of speech, mortgages for illegals, Tommy Thompson's amnesty, and now this SSN thing).

The SocSec figures listed are ridiculously low-balled in a number of ways:
- It starts with all of the cost figures. When you divide cost by beneficiaries, the result is about $2,000, even for current payments to those who move to foreign countries. That's more like a monthly benefit for a wage-earner who earned near the maximum taxable amount for most of his working career (current max benefit is about $18,000) PLUS a stay-at home spouse (spouse's benefit would normally be another 50% on top of that if they are the same age, so a grand total potential maximum of $27,000). I would say multiply the per-person and therefore total costs by about 6 and you'd have an accurate cost estimate.
- The quoted benefit per person in the article of $8,100 is very low, because it includes a lot of past retirees, who went out with lower benefits due to lower wages.
- Illegals with bogus SSNs are paying into the system and would surely demand benefits even though they are here illegally. If a half million illegals and their spouses start collecting about $15,000 a year in benefits (benefit levels are higher per dollar earned at lower earnings levels), it would cost $7.5 BILLION each year, for starters.
- If you finish losing control of the SSN numbering system (we're well on our way to that), the potential for massive fraud is incredible, and the chances of prosecution for committing it in the current moral climate are very low. Hundreds of people colluded in massive fraud during the final three years of the Clinton Administration at the Department of Education, and I'm not aware that any prosecution of anybody ever occurred.
- The current estimate of illegals in the country of 5 million is probably low. Many others estimate 8-12 mil.
- The impact of incentivizing illegal immigration are not quantified.
- This action would give no incentive to Mexico to heal itself. Vicente Fox has been a major disppointment on that front.

I'm trying to think of when I have been more discouraged about this country's future. Maybe 1979 during the Carter nightmare, but this is really worse because much of it is being done or proposed by the people I thought were usually the good guys.

And while I'm in the neighborhood, let me criticize the late Robert Bartley for the one glaring blind spot in an otherwise stellar editorial career: illiegal immigration.

[Pro-Bush]

Isn't Social Security already in the tank?

[SpaceBar]

I hesitate to make the following statement, since it is
unenforceable, and unproveable by myself, if this garbage
passes, I will not vote for Bush in 04. Period. He could run
against Hillary Clinton. He will not get my vote. I'm tired
of being sold up the river.

[AD from SpringBay]

Think about this - social security is now an international relief fund and we, the citizens who pay the bills, had no say in it, no vote - it's just happening. Yet we are assured the system is safe. What is going to happen when enough people either take up another spot at the momma-guv'ment nipple line or John Galt it the hell out of here?

[templar]

Well, I think the best solution is for both nations to stop salivating over these tax dollars and exempt legals from SSI

That would make them more employable than citizens since employers wouldn't be liable for thier share of the FICA tax but they would be for citizens.

[CindyDawg]

Just give me what I have paid in and call it even. I won't pay any more in and the government won't owe me anything. I'll take care of myself.