Posted on 11/19/2007 5:26:47 PM PST by MindBender26
A group of former network-level broadcasters, most of us of the Conservative bent, were sitting around in New York this weekend, conducting an intellectual discussion on want ails the Nation and the best remedies therefore . In other words, it was a bunch of reasonably educated, well-experienced grumpy old men sitting around having a bull session.
A former NBC Radio newscaster (one of the great Golden Throat voices of all times) brought up a write-piece (article for print, not air) he is doing for a major magazine. The subject was illegal immigration. In the research for this article he interviewed an economist.
Now please understand; in predicting what is going to happen in the future, economists have a track record that makes hurricane forecasters and horoscope writers look good by comparison. However, in looking back and describing why something has happened in the past, economists are excellent. In many ways, its sort of an academic extension of the old Follow the money, follow the crime truism.
The larger concept is that you can improve anything if you can first measure it. And to measure it, you first must be able to assign numbers to it. Its as if you say you want to raise the American standard of living a lot. How can you really measure to see if you have succeeded? A lot has different meanings to everyone. On the other hand, if one was to say I want to raise the American standard of living 20%, thats easy to measure, because we have assigned a specific number, the 20% increase, as our goal.
But, I digress.
The economist was interested in problem of illegal immigration and its impact on Americans, so he began to work his little spreadsheet ju ju and came up with an incredible but entirely valid conclusion. Illegal immigration is directly tied to generational welfare payments in the United States. Illegal immigration began to flourish when welfare became an expected way of life for some Americans. Its not just the parents getting welfare. Illegal immigration flourishes when children are raised in welfare homes, where having the government take care of you becomes a way of life. In fact, it becomes more than a way of life, welfare becomes an assumed entitlement.
Regarding illegal immigration, the immigrants do not come here for welfare. As we all know, they come here for jobs. These are the jobs we continually hear Americans wont take. And why wont Americans take these low paying and perhaps socially demeaning jobs? Because welfare pays them not to work!
For example, a landscape worker might make $10 to $14 an hour to bend over and lay sod all day. Thats hard work. For the Mexican or Guatemalan here illegally, that $14 an hour is a huge wage, and the work no harder that he is accustomed to at home.
But if an American welfare class young man takes that job, in reality, he is only getting paid about $4 an hour, not $14. Why? Because he receives the equivalent of $10 (or much more) for not working! When you add up all the welfare benefits of free healthcare (Medicaid) free food, free shelter and many other benefits, they are benefits a worker would have to pay at least $20,000 a year to receive, and $20,000 a year is $10 an hour.
Thank about it. The American taxpayer is paying people $10 an hour (and much more in some states) to not work!
Why get a job laying sod for $14 an hour, when the real benefit to the welfare class is $4 an hour. In some states with generous welfare programs, its even less. In California and New York, someone earning $14 an hour and giving up welfare to do so is losing money, between $3 and $12 an hour, not gaining real income at all! Not working in California pays $22 an hour!
So why would a welfare class person take that $14 an hour job? They dont, but those who cant get welfare (or at least not as much welfare) do. The real difference between American welfare class (non) workers and illegal immigrant workers is not the citizenship status. Its whether they have to work to eat.
The solution to the illegal immigration problem is very simple. In simple proven economic terms, stop welfare for healthy people capable of work, and you stop illegal immigration! If you make the jobs Americans wont take into jobs Americans take so they can eat, you have removed any reason for the illegals to come here. No jobs, no illegal immigration.
Everyone is talking about paying lots of money to design programs to catch employers hiring illlegals. The answer is much simpler. Stop paying Americans not to work and the illegal immigrants will stay home, south of the border.
That costs us nothing
and saves a lot of money on welfare payments!
The free-traders, Libertarian, open borders type will say anything to keep the quasi-slave labor flowing across the border
BTTT
Earth calling Hunterite... earth calling hunterite.
I can read the Spanish-language newspapers. The "risk" of a criminal record and the "inability" (that is truly hilarious) to return doesn't exist for these people.
I have personal knowledge of many illegals who collect aid to dependent children and live in Section 8 housing in addition to working for tax-free wages. And they travel back and forth to Mexico at will. You need to be deaf, dumb and blind to not know that.
I even served on a jury where two illegals were suing a place of business for being "beat up" after being ejected and returning with a baseball bat --- and NO ONE WAS ALLOWED TO ASK THE OBVIOUS QUESTION.
The case was thrown out as an obvious (even for California) case of illegals playing the litigation lottery...
Their mommas and their girlfriends are.
Nothing new, (Michael Savage has been saying his for years) but well written and true. Also, you can line the borders with nuclear waste, and that’ll put an end to it.
Obviously these so-called experts never visit a welfare office. I sometimes count the 'anchor babies' in tow while their mothers go in to apply for services. I have done this in one particular county for the past year. My figures would astonish the best of the so-called experts.
Lots of nice charts about it at: http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=114&subsecID=143&contentID=250201
The ones we're concerned with on this thread don't work -- and they don't live on the streets.
Instead, they live with the women who are on welfare because they've had children by this young man (and others).
They might spend their day on the streets. But they don't live there.
The more money a woman makes off her "papers", the more desirable she is.
1. Make a new, tamperproof Z-Visa the only acceptable employment document.
2. Have a 6 month waiting list for the Z- Visa.
3. Issue the Z-Visa in Us Embassies overseas.
the economist is only partially correct. Illegal immigraztion has grown since 1965. The Great Society may have created demand and subsidies, but the Immigration Act of 1965 opened the general floodgate of immigration, creating a hospitable environment.
So explain to me the non-economist why (formerly) very well paid high tech workers who really want to work are seeing their jobs outsourced?
Sorry, but the motivation behind both illegal immigration and high-tech outsourcing is the same - GREED. A lot of people are making a lot of money screwing the average Ameican worker.
There is no shortage of American workers that requires foreign workers here or in Bangalore. From Bill Gates and George Bush down to Jake’s Drywallers there is a huge shortage of American business men and politicians who don’t remember where their loyalties should lie.
That will happen when the boomers peak in collecting social security. Social security is welfare. Farmers are also a major recipient of welfare. Add them to the typical welfare queens and you have a clear voting majority. It's no coincidence that AARP is a socialist pressure group.
The question is, Who would you rather have cook your lunch a needle using junkie or an illegal alien? Who would you rather do maid service to your hotel room, a crankster or an illegal alien?
In part, looks at Harlem, NY the families there pre-and post “Great Society”.
An older book set, but much of what is covered in relevant even today.
The lack of border enforcement explains how the illegals can get here, in large numbers, in the first place.
The third leg of this stool is the payroll withholding and minimum wage and numerous other legal, liability, wage and safety mandates on legal employment. With the minimum wage and all these related mandates (not to mention unions in some cases) it costs close to ten dollars minimum to hire someone legally.
Any job worth less than that has to be done by illegals.
When low wages are illegal, only illegals will have low wages.So (1) low income legals are paid to not work, (2) its illegal to pay low wages, and (3) we have an ample supply of illegal low wage workers.
Trifecta.
Socialism is a cancer, eating at the weaker elements of our society, the elderly (Social Security), the students (public school), the sick (universal health care), the unemployed, the ignorant, the fearful, the inner city ghetto dwellers, the victims of natural disaster, the morally challenged (prisons), ...
The lack of border enforcement, the presence of a welfare state and the minimum wage and numerous employer mandates have created two more major 'Rat bases -- the out of work legals, and the working illegals.
We should all just "get along" and share and share alike, huh? We should make our companies uncompetitive in the global market by only employing the highest paid workers, right (ask GM how well that's working)?
Are we having a little difficulty understanding how capitalism works?
I would not call it GREED. I'd call it the divinely endowed right to pursuit of happiness.
“I have personal knowledge of many illegals who collect aid to dependent children and live in Section 8 housing in addition to working for tax-free wages. And they travel back and forth to Mexico at will. You need to be deaf, dumb and blind to not know that.”
Exactly. They are assisted by Hispanic organizations in learning how to beat the system and many are two income households, enabling them to send cash back to Mexico. They work tax free and are depleting or have exhausted completely the funding for the assistance benefits...welfare, food stamps, housing, medicaid, etc....needed by American citizens who are disabled.
Before The Hart-Celler Act of 1965 (Thank you Senator Kennedy)and the 1986 Amnesty Act ( Thank you Senator Kennedy) most Americans wanted population control in the US.Now we allow in around 2,000,000 legal immigrants a year plus their extended families,(Mother,Father,Sister ,Brother and their children.)That adds millions more.Then you have the 12-20 million illegal Aliens that Congress wants to give Amnesty to.If that’s granted,then you have their extended families,which will add millions more.Then you have the 500,000 that still cross our southern border illegally each year.The US current population is 301,000,000,not to long ago we exported our surplus food,now we import half,In the near future 36 states will have a water shortage,Some studies show the US population at 450,000,000 by the year 2050.Has anyone ask their Congressman and Senators what quality of life our Children and Grand Children will have? Social Security,in 1996 the Social Security Administration signed an agreement with Mexico that will give Social Security payments to some of the 12-20 million illegal aliens once they are granted amnesty, total cost over 50 billion dollars a year.This type information is at both the FAIR and the Heritage Foundation Web sites.Add the 45 billion dollars each year that the American tax payer donates for illegal aliens free medical care,food stamps,rent assistance,translators at schools and we have a ticking time bomb.Amnesty for 12-20 million illegal aliens and endless immigration is not the answer.I encourage everyone to write their Congressman and Senators and ask them what the total cost to the American tax payer will be if they grant amnesty to those 12-20 million illegal aliens,after all you and I and our children will foot the bill for their decision
They are called Anchor babies which as you know are American citizens, and American citizens are entitle to all the freebies. There are around 3 million Anchor babies that range in age from newborns ( Even as we speak) to adults. “This Libertarian solution will never stop the flow, and they know it. Most illegals dont receive entitlements because it takes doctored documents to receive welfare. And that risks the illegal to taking on a criminal record, and the inability to never legally immigrate here.”
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