Friday, March 28, 2014

A Hypothetical Question on "Illegal" Immigration

I put this little hypothetical situation on Facebook the other day, and it has generated some lively discussion.  If you haven't friended me on FB yet, feel free to do so! 

Who does the American taxpayer more harm: 1) the guy from Mexico or Canada who is in the U.S. without a permission slip from Obama, who is working away mowing yards, hanging sheetrock, or pouring concrete for about $25,000 per year, and who is paying money into Social Security that he'll never be able to collect, OR, 2) the machinist or engineer at General Dynamics being paid $60,000 per year, directly by the taxpayers, to make aircraft we don't need?

(General Dynamics is a manufacturer of munitions and armaments for the military-industrial complex.) 

 

6 comments:

pacman said...

So far, almost every study done suggests a net loss for the US taxpayer via ILLEGAL immigration. The idea that we don't NEED what GD supplies is absurd. That is one of those sound bite statements that send progressives into paroxysms of joy but are without substance.

MingoV said...

This is a straw man question. Here's the real question. We go to fully open borders. I'll be conservative and say that only one million Mexicans come here in the first year. The vast majority have less than three sets of clothes, less than twenty dollars, no job lined up, and no transportation. Most have a less than sixth grade education in Mexico.

These immigrants need housing, food, laundry services, means of finding jobs, healthcare, schooling for the children, and English as second language education for the adults.

They will end up in government built, taxpayer funded refugee camps along the southern borders of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The cream of the crop will be snagged by companies wanting good quality, low wage workers. The rest of the immigrants will be a net burden on the taxpayers for at least a generation.

I'm all in favor of open immigration, as soon as we have a fully libertarian government with no safety net, no nanny-statism, and near-zero taxes. Otherwise, open border immigration will just expand the welfare state.

Eainsdad said...

The problem isn't that the illegals are working. It is that they are by and large getting paid under the table. That is money that is not taxed for medicaid or medicare or social security or roads or schools. And their children are going to schools and their families are being treated by doctors that they have not put taxes into the system to support. Additionally, there is all of this recent discussion about a living wage and how Walmart is forcing the gubmint to subsidize their wage payment practices. Well you can bank on the fact that all of these illegals are also illegally getting food stamps and government housing and a host of other entitlement spending thrown at them. So why is it bad for Walmart to pay minimum wage but good for illegals to work for less than minimum wage and suck up resources they aren't even paying the minimum taxes for?

Andrew S. Mooney said...

Since the question here is who does the taxpayer more harm...It's the immigrant, because if he's paying the social security that he will never collect, he's taking what is a legitimate job with tax, that is not simply there because it's in the black economy, away from someone who is in the country legally....Who then has to probably claim social security because he has not got a job.

Defence workers by and large don't have huge populations of expectant, wailing relatives living in another country, either.

That $25000 goes further if you then a have a whole load of family members living in Mexico on the remittances he sends them. You can support a whole family on it, because their GDP and living costs are lower. You can barely get by on $60,000 in some parts of the US.

How about getting your kid to cut the lawn in return for the allowance money that they want off you? That way your job has created two things of value to your family. The money has created a cut lawn, and whatever your kid then spends that money on.

Stop coming up with glib moral justifications for paying illegal immigrants to do yard-work as you lounge around on your backside.

Bob S. said...

I'm going to go with the illegal worker.

We have a system in place, albeit slowly, the military/industrial complex. A system we, the people, control.

The illegal alien does not agree to abide by the system --even if they are forced to abide by parts (Social security). In fact, they often create more crime -- identity theft (that social security number has to come from some where), fraud (signing up for benefits they are not eligible for), etc.


And then there is the cultural assimilation aspect. America is a wonderfully diverse country and we value immigrants --legal ones- for what they bring to the table. But many illegal aliens do not see themselves as citizens of the country; they remain part of the cultural identity of their origin. So instead of the melting pot, we get cultural salad, bits and pieces thrown together -- clashing instead of merging into a better way.

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