Posted on 05/18/2006 4:20:39 AM PDT by ProCivitas
By Robert J. Samuelson Wednesday, May 17, 2006
President Bush's immigration speech mostly missed the true nature of the problem. We face two interconnected population issues. One is aging; the other is immigration...On the one side will be older baby boomers demanding all their federal retirement benefits. On the other will be an expanding population of younger and poorer Hispanics ... The central problem is not illegal immigration. It is undesirably high levels of poor and low-skilled immigrants, whether legal or illegal, most of whom are Hispanic... Testifying recently before Congress, University of Illinois economist Barry Chiswick -- a respected immigration scholar -- said this of low-skilled immigrants:
"Their presence in the labor market increases competition for low-skilled jobs, reducing the earnings of low-skilled native-born workers. . . . Because of their low earnings, low-skilled immigrants also tend to pay less in taxes than they receive in public benefits, such as income transfers (e.g., the earned income tax credit, food stamps), public schooling for their children, and publicly provided medical services. Thus while the presence of low-skilled immigrant workers may raise the profits of their employers, they tend to have a negative effect on the well-being of the low-skilled native-born population, and on the native economy as a whole."
...seriously compromising our own...by endorsing large "guest worker" programs and an expansion of today's system of legal visas. ... In 1972 Hispanics were 5 percent of the U.S. population and their median household income was 74 percent of that of non-Hispanic white households. In 2004 Hispanics were 14 percent of the population, and their median household income was 70 percent of the level of non-Hispanic whites. These numbers suggest that rapid immigration of low-skilled workers and rapid assimilation are at odds... Competition among them depresses wages. Social services are stretched thin...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Even with skilled legal immigrants there are many of the same issues, large corporate interests vying with the interests of US workers. If unskilled immigrants, in excess, depress wages of unskilled Americans, so do skilled immigrants, in excess, depress wages of skilled Americans. Right now we have Tysons wanting illegals to run its chicken plants, but ultimately this is little different from Microsoft importing aliens to run its software factories.
Bush is a dimwit, in case you haven't figured it out yet.
If he allows Iran to get the bomb, he will be the worst President we've ever had.
I think it's time to settle this aspect of the debate. It is clear that a large influx of Mexicans will be a COST, not a BENEFIT to our economy.
They're not.
What they are going to do, however, is help Americans pay the increasing costs of funding "our retirement" while at the same time enabling us to maintain our very high standard of living.
It's really all that simple, folks.
They already are costing Americans BILLIONS of dollars, they definitely are not worth it.
And how mnay low paying jobs are there really? Glad you asked!
There aren't that many McDonald minimum wage jobs available what has happened is that the traitors are construction companies, Instead of paying American workers $18.00 per hour and have to abide by the legal costs of hiring people like paying taxes on the people etc the construction companies decided to take the law into their own hands and decided they would rather pay the illegals $18 per hour cash and NOT have to abide by all the rules placed on them by the liberals who set the employment laws to begin with!!
Should companies be allowed to take the laws into their own hands regarding employment laws?
Should construction companies decide whether they want to pay taxes or not?
Because they are paying the exact same amount of money to the illegals under the table they were paying legal residents folks, I know I spoke with an owner of one of the companies.
Is that what a 'fair/unimpaired market' would do? What do 'distorted markets' do re such things? How do markets become impaired/distorted?
save
Is that what a 'fair/unimpaired market' would do? What do 'distorted markets' do re such things? How do markets become impaired/distorted?
Your right. Assimilation of immigrants has worked so well in Europe, let's copy it here.
ping
I've also been told this by ... ahem... people who would know. In fact I've been told that illegal "day laborers" demand the same amount of *cash* wages that would be paid to a legal American day laborer, but with taxes and FICA deductions.
From those anecdotal conversations, it's pretty clear that the "underpaid and abused" illegal alien "day laborer" is a myth, nothing more.
If great amounts of cheap labor were what it takes for prosperity then Mexico would be running rings around us.
Great article. But I think there was another thread on it, syndicated by a different paper.
Yes they do. Fortunately, the government does keep tabs on them and doesn't let them sneak into the country.
The employer makes out by not paying FICA and Workers Comp.
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