[Toonces T. Cat]

>>Previous articles have stated that even those that used
>>fake SS numbers would be entitled, if they could prove it.

I agree completely that the potential for fraud will be substantial. I think it's a fair and appropriate course if there is also some serious verification of the recipients. My point was that many folks are crying wolf by strongly implying that every illegal that ever crossed the river would get a payment every month.

I work in Edinburg, Texas...about 15 miles north of the border...and due to the fact that we are woefully short of qualified U.S. citizens with tech skills, we hire many Mexicans to fill those jobs. These are good people that do pay their taxes here and shouldn't be ripped off because we have a serious illegal immigration problem.

I'm with O'Reilly on this...Put the military on the border. Just don't shoot us in the "workforce foot" at the same time...I'd love to have American citizens in those jobs, but until the education community in this country cleans up its act, that's just not gonna happen...:-)

-Toonces

[Ben Ficklin]

Those crying wolf are also blowing the dollar amounts and the significance of the dollar amounts out of proportion.

Even with the highest number thrown around being $1 billion, that is but a drop in the bucket of total SS spending.

[Egg]

Call me old fashioned, but I believe anyone immigrating here should want to be a citizen and patriot, and not just use America to funnel dollars over to some corrupt culture and their economy.

But this is a red herring in terms of fundamental arguments. We shouldn't task the government with taking care of our retirement accounts anyway (where is it in the constitution that we are even entitled to retire?). It's ashame that Bush was once talking about privatizing Socialist Security, but now he's simply engaging in more big government activity--on the global scale.