Posted on 11/23/2004 11:03:48 AM PST by Regulator
The article for this thread says that they have to first pay money *in* to our Social Security Administration, and then they have to go back to Mexico to collect their monthly checks.
That's precisely the message that we should be sending them. If you want your money, you have to go back to Mexico.
But there are ways around having to live in Mexico while collecting these checks. Although I really wonder if anyone would try to live in the USA while collecting these checks since the cost of living in the USA is much higher than it is in Mexico.
Do you want to make them go back to Mexico to collect their checks or not?
Why? Do you think Mexicans are stupid? How racist of you.
The truth is that most Mexicans are quite aware of wage differentials, benefits to non-citizens, and the general status of people working in the U.S. legally or not. Word gets around in a lot of ways. Many of the people coming here aren't the squat laborers of the jungle south. A lot are the people who are essentially the victims of the feudal narcocracy that has developed in Mexico over the last 35 years (the feudal part already existed; the narco part got going in earnest in the late 1960s...for obvious reasons). They are, in fact, Mexican "middle class". Or what passes for it.
As far as the totalization agreement being an effort to coax people to go home, that's intentionally misleading nonsense. Mr. Bush does not believe in immigration laws at all, as the characteristics of his "guest worker" program reveal: no limit to the numbers, anyone anywhere can apply after a cursory attempt to find a "willing" American, and a three year time limit which is essentially meaningless due to rolling renewals.
He is not interested in incentives to go home. He is interested in constructing a global labor market with an interim goal of expanding NAFTA into the FTAA. Totalization agreements are part and parcel of such treaties.
Two things: you haven't answered the point about taxation obligations created by the presence of illegals. Do you think that we owe the citizens of Mexico, in the country illegally, anything? If so, how much?
Secondly, as far as mass deportations go, I'd be all for them. Boxcars are a little old fashioned, so I'll buy off on a real nice airlift. Something for the old Starlifter fleet to do. Absent that, why don't we take the dear departed Sabertooth's advice, and just make things "hot" enough that they will deport themselves?
Why yes, I did. Interesting isn't it, that he feels comfortable telling the world that this is what the gringos "must do". He even set a time limit for us to comply with his demands. How thoughtful.
It's a characteristic of Mexican-Spaniard machisimo culture. Aggressive demands and threats are made until the intended victim obliges. In other words, thug culture. Circa 1500 AD. Not much has changed there since then, at least socio-politically. It's got a better veneer lately, but it's really the same old thing.
Basically, the Mexican Uber-class has sized up our president and his acolytes and found them to be rather easy marks. So the demands are incessant and strident. You can find the same behavior on lots of street corners in Queens and Brooklyn, and behind closed doors where the Bonnano's and the Gotti's and the Genovese family operate.
How much do we owe the citizens of Mexico? Why do you say we owe them anything?
"I imagine that the possibilities for fraud with this scheme are limitless."
The Social Security Administration can't screen citizens, I can't wait to see this fiasco. Here's what the SSA wasted on people who were not qualified to recieve disability benefits...billions!
******
Total Overpayment Debt Is Increasing (1999-2003)
Dollars in millions 3,000
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Year
Source: GAO analysis based on SSA data.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-929.
Third, the agency relies on potentially inaccurate management information
to effectively monitor and oversee some parts of this workload. These weaknesses contributed to some work CDR cases GAO identified that were as much as 7 years old, resulting in potential and established overpayments as large as $105,000 per beneficiary. In addition, GAO found that SSA
relies on potentially inaccurate management information to administer its....`snip`
Totalization: Sellout of American Workers
by Phyllis Schlafly
Nov. 17, 2004
The Democrats are trying to make a campaign issue out of George W. Bush's alleged plan to "privatize" Social Security, scaring seniors into thinking their checks will be cut off. That is a phony issue; all Bush suggests is to offer younger workers the option (not the compulsion) of transferring a very small part of their Social Security benefit into private investments.
The real threat to Social Security doesn't come from giving young people this opportunity. The threat comes from the Bush Administration's plan to load illegal aliens into the Social Security system, an idea that would skyrocket costs and bankrupt the system at the same time that baby boomers flood into their benefit years.
The code word for this racket is "totalization." The United States has totalization agreements with 20 other countries, which have been reasonable and non-controversial, but totalization with Mexico is TOTALLY different.
The idea behind totalization with other countries is to assure a pension to those few individuals who work legally in two countries by "totalizing" their payments into the pension systems of both countries. All existing totalization agreements are with developed nations whose retirement benefits are on a parity with U.S. benefits, and the affected employees work for companies that have been paying taxes into the other countries' retirement systems.
Workers from the other 20 countries come with documents from their employer verifying that they are authorized to work in the United States. Only a minuscule fraction of Mexicans enter with such documents.
The legitimate goal of totalization with other countries is to avoid double taxation for retirement when employers assign their employees to work temporarily in another country. Reciprocity works because there is rough parity between the number of U.S. workers in the 20 other countries and the foreigners from those countries who work in the United States.
But this goal has no relevance to Mexico. There is no parity whatsoever between the number of Mexicans working in the United States and the number of U.S. citizens working in Mexico, and absolutely no parity in the social security systems of the two countries.
Mexican benefits are not remotely equal to U.S. benefits. Americans receive benefits after working for 10 years, but Mexicans have to work 24 years before receiving any benefits.
Mexican workers receive back in retirement only what they actually paid in, plus interest, whereas the U.S. Social Security system is skewed to give lower-wage earners benefits greatly in excess of what they and their employers contributed.
Mexico has two different retirement programs, one for public-sector employees, which is draining the national treasury, and one for private-sector workers, which is estimated to cover only 40 percent of the workforce. The rest of the workers are in the off-the-record economy (euphemistically called the "informal" sector).
The 10 million Mexicans who have illegally entered the United States previously lived in poverty, did not pay social security taxes in Mexico, and did not work for employers who paid taxes into a retirement plan. If they were working at all, it was in the off-the-record economy.
Illegality is no issue with the countries where we have existing totalization agreements because none of them accounts for even one percent of the U.S illegal population. On the other hand, Mexico provides more than two-thirds of the illegals in the United States.
The Bush totalization plan would pay out billions in Social Security benefits to Mexicans for work they did in the U.S. using fraudulent Social Security numbers, something that Americans would go to jail for doing. It would pay Social Security Disability benefits to Mexicans who worked in the United States as little as 3 years.
The Bush totalization plan would lure even more Mexicans into the United States illegally in the hope of amnesty and eligibility for Social Security benefits. The Bush plan would even cover the Mexicans' spouses and dependents who may never have lived in the United States.
Since few if any of the illegal aliens have built up any equity in the Mexican retirement system, what is there to totalize? Totalization is a plan for the U.S. taxpayers to end up assuming the entire burden.
When George W. Bush became President in 2001, the Mexican government expected the United States to pass amnesty (disguised as a guest worker plan and "regularizing" the entry of Mexicans). After 9/11, Mexico's national policy turned to increasing the number of its nationals working in the United States and getting them to qualify for all the social benefits and privileges Americans receive, from driver's licenses to Social Security and Social Security Disability.
The Social Security commissioners of both Mexico and the Bush Administration signed a totalization agreement in June of 2004, but the text of the agreement has been kept secret. Maybe we will be permitted to see it after the President approves it and sends it to Congress.
Let your Members of Congress know you want them to stop this billion-dollar sellout of American workers and taxpayers.
http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2004/nov04/04-11-17.html
"So is this latest *reward* for mexicans only ?? Or does everyone get their reward for working here "legally or otherwise".
From the information provided us so far, YOU and I have to work 40 work credits to qualify. Illegals will need to work 6.
"Can I get my contributions if I migrate to Mexico?"
From what I've seen, yes. However, Mexico has strict migration laws, so you can't. And they enforce their's.
"How much do we owe the citizens of Mexico? Why do you say we owe them anything?" - Regulator
If they have already paid their money into our Social Security system, then I'm all for making them go back to Mexico to collect their monthly checks. We owe them that much.
You seem to be against making them go back to Mexico to collect, however. That's either short sighted or greedy, perhaps both.
Nonsense. Even this article, which *you* posted but apparently didn't read or comprehend, specificly says that they have to go back home to Mexico to collect their money.
HINT: that's an *incentive* to return to Mexico.
Jo Anne Barnhart, Commissioner of Social Security, signed an agreement today with Dr. Santiago Levy Algazi, Director General, Mexican Social Security Institute, that will remove from U.S. citizens working for U.S. companies in Mexico the burden of paying social security taxes to both countries. The agreement also will remove the double taxation requirement for Mexican citizens working for Mexican companies in the United States. “This agreement eliminates a serious and unnecessary impediment to American and Mexican businesses and their employees,” Commissioner Barnhart stated. “Just as important, it promotes equity and fairness for workers who divide their careers between our two countries.”
Currently, U.S. companies that employ U.S. citizens in Mexico are required to contribute to both the U.S. and Mexican social security systems. When the agreement takes effect, U.S. and Mexican employers and their employees will contribute to either the U.S. or Mexican social security systems, but not both. This will result in approximately 3,000 U.S. workers and their employers sharing in tax savings of $140 million over the first five years of the agreement.
The agreement also will improve social security protection for people who work in both countries. At present, some workers who have divided their careers between the United States and Mexico fail to qualify for social security benefits from one or both countries because they do not meet minimum eligibility requirements. Under the agreement it will be possible for workers and their family members to qualify for pro-rated U.S. or Mexican benefits based on combined credits from both countries. This will result in approximately 50,000 U.S. and Mexican workers receiving benefits after the first five years of the agreement.
Sure, but can we make them, that's the question.
We don't have to pay them their money back if they don't return to Mexico, one presumes.
and the american government will deduct their health care costs?
How will we ensure that they stay in Mexico?
Introducing an initiative into the legislature guarantees neither its final form nor its eventual passage.
What you can guarantee though is that an amendment will be tacked onto it to move some government activity to West Virginia and name it after Senator Byrd.
How thoughty of Uncle Sap! We have been told for years that what is taken out of our paycheck today gets mailed to Grandma in her SS check tomorrow. THERE ARE NO "SAVINGS", Vincente!!! And if they let the Mexicans take out their lump sum payments, then every last one of us should be able to get our "savings" out too and invest them, instead of pouring them into this campaign slush fund that our crooked politicians use to buy votes. We need to scream at our representatives that this will NOT be allowed!
I can see the future clearly now.
The United States will introduce legislation in the U.S. Congress that would allow Mexican workers who paid into Social Security in the United States to be refunded their contributions when they return to their homeland.
Afterwards, following the provisions of this agreement to introduce similar legislation, Mexico will introduce legislation into the Mexican Congress whereby Mexican workers who paid into Social Security in the United States will be refunded their contributions when they return to their homeland.
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