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, it’s 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. It’s 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%, that’s 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. It’s 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 won’t take.” And why won’t 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. That’s 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, it’s 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 don’t, but those who can’t 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. It’s 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 won’t 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!
I’ve been saying for years -
“Quit using the brute force of the Federal Government to take money from people who work to give to those who won’t work, and you’ll have Americans coming out of the woodwork begging for those jobs ‘Americans won’t do’”.
Self-evident, correct, and not going to happen thanks to the victim and welfare industries and power those industries bring to Democrap politicians.
"Intellectuals" who can't find the proper words.
“Your thoughts?”
I think its amazing how hard the establishment is twisting and turning to avoid the common sense rule of law that in the end protects the American worker and his/her individual sovereignity. Yeah, change welfare too..but functional border law is a matter of national common sense.
You cannot survive being a welfare state and having open borders. --Milton Freidman.
As far as I know, young men are not on welfare, they either work or live on the streets. I still say securing the border and MASS deportation is very much in realm of reality along with cutting welfare.
“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 won’t take.” And why won’t Americans take these low paying and perhaps socially demeaning jobs? Because welfare pays them not to work!”
I grew up in a small farming community with a large black population and HIGH unemployment, approaching 20% at times. During harvest, Mexicans came to do the picking. Your post explains why.
I'd say this comes under the heading of things that are "calling Captain Obvious".
Build the fence, bust the businesses hiring illegals, deport those illegals caught, stop the welfare. Comprehensive reform.
This idea of cutting off welfare payments for “healthy” individuals will create a cottage/lawyer/scheister industry to define “healthy,” and it will become such a loaded term that the rest of us will scratch our heads at the result ...
I've been saying this for years here on FR.
I thought of that solution in 1972.
In fact, there might even be a perverse incentive-- save money and fill an affirmative action quota too.
Let a person with a full time job, work at another part time job and exempt the pay up $xxxx/yr. From all taxes. You’d never see a job go begging then.
Another open borders Libertarian solution.
The free-traders, Libertarian, open borders type will say anything to keep the quasi-slave labor flowing across the border.
This Libertarian solution will never stop the flow, and they know it. Most illegals don’t 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.
This libertarian solution is also almost politically impossible to execute, since Democrats would oppose every single cut in entitlements.
This Libertarian solution has nothing to do with solving illegal immigration, the real agenda is cutting entitlements, which is great, but it is dishonest to have a hidden agenda.
I’ve been thinking and saying this for years
Many of us have been saying that for years, that the tipping point has not been reached. When these welfare parasites (who are all allowed to vote) outnumber the worker bees, the stuff's gonna hit the fan and armed class conflict (or true fascism*) will be the only way out.
* Look it up!
As far as I know, if those "young men" are not dying of exposure or starvation, they are living off welfare directly or indirectly -- or from crime.
No matter where they are "living".
Combine this program with a very real threat (from us taxpayers) to withold our tax payments unless (or until) it is implemented....you just might have a winner.
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