Illegal Dirty Little Secrets about Social Security By Herman Cain

There are two dirty little secrets behind the debate over the illegal alien issue that even the advocates of securing the borders first have failed to discuss. The first secret is that the estimated twelve to twenty million aliens living and working illegally in the United States have to commit identity theft to secure employment. The second secret is that without illegals' payroll tax contributions, filed under stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers, the Social Security system would collapse years earlier than estimated.

The birth of the connection between illegal aliens, identity theft and the Social Security system began in 1986. That year Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which required workers to show a Social Security card to obtain employment. IRCA also made it illegal to knowingly hire undocumented workers. The consequence of IRCA is that millions of stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers have been used in the past twenty years. IRCA did nothing to curb illegal aliens from crossing our borders to find work, or to end employers' demand for their labor.

A 2006 General Accountability Office study reports that the Social Security Administration maintains a database called the Earnings Suspense File (ESF) to track fraudulent use of Social Security numbers. When an employer files payroll taxes for an employee, and the employee's name and Social Security number do not match or the number does not exist in Social Security's records, the unmatched or fraudulent number is recorded in the ESF. Though estimates of illegal aliens present in the U.S. range from twelve to twenty million, as of November 2004 the ESF contained over 246 million records.

The GAO also reports that forty-three percent of employers that file payroll taxes on stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers represent just five industries. Further, 8,900 employers, .2 percent of all employers with reports in the ESF database, have submitted over thirty percent of the ESF's total records.

According to a 2005 report by MSNBC technology correspondent Bob Sullivan, the ESF represents $420 billion in payroll tax contributions. Illegal aliens who work under stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers will never receive Social Security benefits, so the hundreds of billions of dollars they contribute represent what Sullivan rightly calls "essentially free money to the system." Eduardo Porter reported in the New York Times that payroll taxes from illegal aliens represent approximately ten percent of the so-called Social Security surplus.

Enforcement of labor and immigration law is further hamstrung by a byzantine bureaucratic nightmare constructed by Congress in an effort ironically designed to protect privacy. Under current law, the SSA is barred from sharing information in the EFS with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) because it contains taxpayer records. Congress has enabled massive invasion of our privacy by encouraging identity theft and not allowing DHS to effectively investigate employers and employees suspected of labor and immigration law infractions. Even though the EFS contains 246 million records of stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers, in 2004 DHS only initiated 5,400 investigations of employers or workers suspected of breaking labor or immigration laws.

Illegal aliens represent cheap labor for employers and billions of dollars to the government to temporarily prop up the failing Social Security system. Congrtess is not only doing nothing to restructure Social Security, but its wink-and-nod policy toward illegal aliens and their employers encourages massive identity theft and ruined financial standing for millions of Americans.

Common sense solutions exist, but the political will to enact them is missing. First, Congress must allow DHS access to the ESF files. The ESF files would literally provide DHS the roadmap to employers and workers guilty of breaking labor and immigration laws. It’s not just law enforcement, it’s a matter of national security.

Second, Congress must increase and enforce penalties on employers of illegal aliens. Most employers want to obey the law, but the laws have to be enforced.

Third, we must secure our borders. That does not mean sending a few thousand members of the National Guard to assist border patrol agents. We must also secure the most porous areas of the border with whatever means necessary, or legal American citizens will continue to fall prey to massive identity theft.

Illegal aliens present a challenge to national security, and a false sense of temporary security to our failing Social Security system. Failure to fix the problem just makes the problem worse.

While I am a bit younger than you, you describe my lifestyle except I am not in California. Although finally only we and the county hold the deed to this piece of property we abide upon.

One of my children has entered the work force and that liberal guilt of paying for anybody and his brother with government programs, that the body of boomers have allowed since that 'new deal' was established, is seen as a position of life long servitude.

Add to the mix that these maintainers of the social security system tell them there is NOT going to be any money in there for these that are funding it as they enter the work force.

Think of where you would be if you got to have kept only 10% of that social security tax to invest as you saw fit.

Problem is that now there is no turning back and setting right a system that by design allowed government to take the supposed set aside retirement to spend as they so choose.

So what now we are required to ignore an invasion of peoples from other countries just to keep sending out those checks, and the checks are not just to the retirees but a host of people who cover the spectrum of need.

... so the hundreds of billions of dollars they contribute represent what Sullivan rightly calls "essentially free money to the system."

The same is true of the so-called SS trust fund which will save SS until 2017, or whatever the latest lie is. That is why the Democrats fight partial privatization. That would be money no longer in the free money slush fund for bridges to nowhere and other ear marks.

We know the SS system is doomed to failure.
It used to take 17 workers to support one retiree.
With 1 million that would mean we need 17 million working to support them and those 17 million would need 17 for each one and the system collapses.
The Govt. increased the fica taxes on us so now it takes two and 1/2 workers to support one.
If you have 10 million retirees that means it takes 30 million workers to support them and those 30 million will need close to 80 million workers to support them and when those 80 million retire...collapse.
There will not be enough workers to support them if every man, woman and child went to work to support them.

The only way out is to increase the working population or increase the tax to a one worker supporting one retiree.

I will be retiring in two years. Which of you two workers will support me? Any volunteers? FORK IT OVER YOU TIGHT WAD SONS OF BI#&HES! YOU OWE ME!

Illegal aliens who work under stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers will never receive Social Security benefits

Wrong!

Once an ILLEGAL alien takes action to become legal -- e.g., being deemed a "guest worker?" -- the W-2 wage info in the ESF can then be transferred to the new legal worker's earnings data in SSA's earnings master files.

Any shiny new law would have to prohibit this from happening. It's legal to do it now.

Also, there's that totalization agreement with Mexico which may make it even easier for ILLEGAL aliens to get "their" social security payments. The last I heard the Administration has yet to release the details of the agreement with Mexico. Even Congress has not seen the details.

Then there's that pesky (for U.S. taxpayers) Social Security Disability Insurance, SSDI, not the same as SSI. With SSDI the ILLEGAL alien, henceforth deemed a "guest worker," will be eligible for SSD payments as a "burned-out," disabled worker at around age 35 or so. Fresh new "guest workers" waiting at the border to work for even cheaper wages, ya know. What a deal!

SS is a pay as you go system. Right now, it is running a surplus. Beginning in 2008, the surplus will start declining and in 2017 the amount collected will be insufficient to cover payments. As a result, the USG will have to borrow money to pay benefits. The SSTF is filled with IOUs in the form of special T-bills, which are only redeemable by the USG.

As a result, the USG will no longer have the SS surplus to use for other purposes and SS will become a black hole instead of a cash cow. The same thing happened in 1983 and Congress just raised taxes, increased the retirement age to 67, and reduced benefits.

The only way to eliminate the 12 to 13 trillion dollar liability of SS is to start converting to personal accounts.

This was already discussed on talk radio (I can't remember which speaker) a few months ago.

The illegal aliens are actually temporarily bolstering the SS system, and when they are taken out of the picture (ha, like that will happen), SS will quickly become insolvent.

I agree with you...it is the 30's and younger crowd that has a profound sense of entitlement if it is anyone. Being in my 30's, I see it all the time. To most people my age it is okay to have a car payment that is as much as the house payment. I do have to say one thing about social security though...it is a Ponzi scheme and you guys are getting rooked. You guys paid for your parents but for some reason didn't have enough children to eventually pay for your golden years. (Tough to raise more than two when both mom and dad are working) On top of that, you have various government crooks stealing (excuse me "appropriating") what money is in the bank at this point to various nefarious pet projects. Don't worry though, they have replaced the money with IOU's. Since the government itself only makes money through taxing the citizens, they have no way to repay it aside from raising taxes to make up the difference. The end result is that there won't be enough money for your generation to possibly live on in retirement years and basically all of our money will have been stolen by politicians by the time we get there. It absolutely is the crime of the century and we let it happen every day we keep these idiots in office continually voting on their own pay raises and tax exemptions.

OK Geez, When are we gonna see that bill passed?

Guaranteed it will happen the day the American electorate demands that it be enacted!!!!

We've done it before on other issues, it can be done again with this one. It is up to each of us to convince our families, neighbors, friends, and associates to see it through.

The people who are trying to SELL this ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, IMHO, are no different than some advertising agency trying to create a "hook" , or "catch phrase", to sell their "product", (ie, Coke is IT, or Nike = "Just Do It !!".

Yep, right along with "Just doing the jobs Americans won't do..."

The slogan people are getting better, but they always leave out the part, "but wait there's more...." and "If you respond within the next 10 minutes we'll double your order at no extra charge..."

A close friend of mine had her SSN used by an illegal alien to secure employment.

He worked nder it collected a check under it but had the minimum taken out for taxes.

She found out when she got a letter from the IRS asking why she hadn't reported the earnings.

Luckily the blankety blank worked in California. She lives in Illinois.

I think the fact that we (you and I) have raised children who go out and work and don't expect the govt to look after them is a big plus, and its own kind of legacy. Both my boys are self-sufficient, in the work force. One is married with a family, one income which is JUST enough for his wife to stay home with the children. This sacrifice is a good investment. They are doing without every frill, budgeting every penny every week but paying their own way, reliant on nobody, not asking us even to help, though they could use it. They know they will not have Soc Sec and they don't count on it. Both my kids have had IRAs since they were in high school. Both contribute through work, foregoing the clubs and nights out so they have already, in their 20s, started saving to be self sufficient unto death. They will follow their parents' lead, your kids and mine, and that is all that we can do to keep the next generation from going down the drain of the New Deal, the Great Society, and the crap that is going on in this Congress, despite its supposedly being conservative (what a joke).

Mr. Cain is a little slow, as both of these subjects have been discussed for years, right here on FR.

Sure we have, but the rest of the planet hasn't caught up yet. I'm glad someone else is saying it too. Especially since Cain is going to run for office again- this guy isn't going away. Meanwhile, we sit here in our underwear and what have we accomplished? We have to be the most informed, sharpest group of conservatives on the planet- but we're still just a glorified echo chamber, mostly.

I had an employee who gave me a fictitious SS number which I did not find out about until 3 years into his employment with me. It wasn't a number that belonged to someone else, it was a number he or the forgerer made up. I always wondered what happened to the money he--and I--contributed

The same thing that happened to the money that's been confiscated under your real number- it was spent before it ever made it to DC, (probably spent long before you actually earned it), and you'll never see it again anyway. There's no point in being upset about a fraudulent number, it's no more illegitimate than the real system.

You're arguing against yourself....you're being selfish because you'll never retire untill you are carried out on a stretcher. If 'boomers' had properly planned for their retirement, they would work 30 years and get out of the way so younger folks would work in your stead.

I point to the boomers as holders of majority of responsibility because the majority of them have the Clintons mindset. There are more of them than any other age group and they are the majority of voters now.

The 70's was their decade of altering this American family landscape and the majority of children born during the end of the 70's are children of 'day care' cause raising ones own child meant that both parents needed to have income.

And so the trend continues because after taxes one person is rarely able to earn enough to support a family.

I also consider the government regulating wages had a negative effect in two directions. These kids that have no skills can't find jobs as many seniors and retiree's are taking the hamburger flipper jobs to supplement their income and business decided to go around that wage system and opened their doors to green card holders legal or not.

Congress is where laws are pieced together and funded and if Congress is not willing to fund their legislation it is dead and then there comes in the selective enforcement as a political tool to punish selectively those in their own little corner of this nation.

Government is the fastest growing employer and they sure do look out for their employees just as Congress instructs.

Well, you have to count that we were defrauded by a business colleague when we were in our 40s so had to start over. You're right -- if that hadn't happened, we'd be retiring on time. We never declared bankruptcy but instead worked for years to pay off the debts we were stuck with (someone else's), which, I believe, was the responsible thing to do. I think we've done pretty well, considering, but I do want to pay off the house.

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