We would all do well to remember the facts presented last night by Robert Rector of Heritage: 12 to 20 million illegal aliens in this country. What is the cost of amnesty? The fiscal cost of amnesty for illegal aliens in the country?
ROBERT RECTOR, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Illegal aliens cost a lot at the present time, but if you give them amnesty, one effect is that they will all have access to Social Security, Medicare, this program called Supplemental Security Income, Medicaid when they retire, OK?
So the real impact of amnesty would be — let’s say you have 12 million people. You give them amnesty. The impact of that, the net requirement cost alone would be negative $2.5 to $3 trillion. Negative $2.5 to $3 trillion.
DOBBS: $2.5 to $3 million?
RECTOR: Yes. And that’s with 12 million. You’re taking 10 million people and putting them into Social Security. That is one of the biggest budget impacts — that is the single budget — biggest budget impact I’ve seen in a quarter of a century. It’s fantastically expensive, and it is fantastically irresponsible for Congress to be contemplating that, and they don’t have a clue in the world, they don’t care what it will cost. RECTOR: You know what? If you look at low-skill immigrants, OK, which most illegals are, in fact, in every stage of their life cycle, they take more in benefits than they pay in, in taxes.
Each — each low-skilled immigrant — and illegals are predominantly low-skilled immigrants — that comes across to the United States, if they bring a family with them, the net cost that they impose on the taxpayers, benefits received minus taxes, is over $1 million over their lifetimes. It’s fantastically expensive.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0705/02/ldt.02.html
Wow, thanks for the info. I thought it would be a big number, but not that big.
The ‘progressive’ tax system we have does cater to them. They get a lot their money back, and giving them the benefit would (I guess) cost quite a bit.