Read the last paragraph of Post #3. The new treaty applies to 50,000 legal workers...not to 8 million illegal aliens.
5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires
What will the agreement cost? No one really knows. A GAO report from September of 2003 says that the SSA is wildly underestimating the costs of the Mexico agreement because its estimate does not factor in the more than 5 million Mexicans already living here illegally, and it assumes there will be no increase in illegal immigration after the agreement takes affect (though you can be sure that President Fox will be touting the deal from the mountaintops!) Joel Mowbray, a freelance writer who broke the story of the agreement last year in National Review, uses an estimate that the GAO says may be too high. Unfortunately, no one, including the GAO, has come up with a reliable estimate.
SSA's cost estimate: $78 million in 1st year, rising to $138 million in 5th year, and to $650 million in 2050.
Mobray's cost estimate: $345 BILLION over the next 20 years.
Here's an example Mowbray provided at the hearing to illustrate how the costs could add up:
"If a 24-year-old Mexican national who has worked illegally in the U.S. for 3 years is able to present documents from a doctor or a friendly doctor, as the case may be, and needed a W-2 or pay stubs indicating $12,000 in annual earnings, this individual would be eligible for the following: Nearly $8,000 per year in disability income adjusted for inflation until age 65 at which point he would receive the same amount as retirement pay. If he does manage to get a job under the table in the U.S. Or Mexico, he would be able to double dip for a second income stream, and if he is survived by his wife or dependents, his family would be able to receive up to $12,000 annually. If he dies at age 60 and his widow lives to age 85, U.S. Taxpayers would be on the hook for a total of a half million dollars. That is for one worker brought into the Social Security system under the totalization agreement after working in view in the United States illegally for 3 years."
Perhaps most telling though, is that the other 20 totalization agreements we have (the list of countries is on page 5 of the GAO report) produce a combined net gain to the U.S. of $600 million each year, according to SSA. There is a clear consensus that the Mexico agreement would result in an annual net loss to the U.S. The only question is how much of a loss. At a hearing on the issue before the House immigration subcommittee last fall, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee stated that there were 3,000 U.S. citizens working in Mexico who would benefit under the agreement. The Census Bureau says that there were almost 8 million Mexican citizens (non-US citizens) living in the United States in 2002 and most of them were employed here. Obviously, the United States would get the raw end of the deal.
Read the last paragraph of Post #3. The new treaty applies to 50,000 legal workers...not to 8 million illegal aliens.
5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires
Pension reform moves ahead despite protests
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html?id_nota=6102&tabla=miami
Mexicans have an over 70% unionization rate --- and the unions are threatening to shut things down because the last thing they want is Social Security reform --- why are our leaders discussing a merging of their plans with ours when these people don't want reforms made to their Socialist system? I guess by merging, they'll be able to do whatever protests against any reforms here too.