Immigrants, Taxes and Social Costs (CA)

[Desertrat]

Browsing the Lew Rockwell website, and ran across this:

http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/tax_slavery.htm

Leaving out the purple prose, the numbers about the costs to the taxpayer as a whole that result from the immigration situation in California make for interesting reading. First time I'd seen "the numbers".

Anybody know the accuracy?

'Rat

[Sayhey]

Originally posted by Desertrat
Browsing the Lew Rockwell website, and ran across this:

http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/tax_slavery.htm

Leaving out the purple prose, the numbers about the costs to the taxpayer as a whole that result from the immigration situation in California make for interesting reading. First time I'd seen "the numbers".

Anybody know the accuracy?

'Rat

'Rat, haven't been able to go through the findings of the Jordan Commission to see if he is "messing" with the stats, but I do find two things that jump out at me at first glance. First, there doesn't seem to be any difference made between legal and illegal immigrants. Second, in figuring costs I came across this remarkable note:

Note: Expenditures used in calculating the fiscal deficit include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, K-12 education, welfare, public safety, health, recreation, higher education, public works, defense, and other programs. Revenues include income, property, sales, Social Security, and corporate taxes allocated to households.

With the exception of K-12 education, a certain percentage of public works and recreation (how you can break out what money was spent on maintaince needs for this small part of the populace as opposed to the whole population is beyond me) none of these expenditures are in programs that illegal immigrants can take part in. The use of defense expenditures is just outrageous. How is one cent more spent in the defense budget due to immigration?

I'll have to look into this guys figures some more, but from the jump they seem very suspicious.

[mactastic]

I notice they also don't mention any possible economic benefit they might provide. I wonder if i would pay $1,000 more for produce, and other goods that are affected by the low wages paid to illegal (and legal) immigrants over the course of a year. Thats only another $20 a week at the grocery store. If the costs of produce doubled, I think I would spend that $20 at the market real quick.

[Ugg]

Originally posted by mactastic
I notice they also don't mention any possible economic benefit they might provide. I wonder if i would pay $1,000 more for produce, and other goods that are affected by the low wages paid to illegal (and legal) immigrants over the course of a year. Thats only another $20 a week at the grocery store. If the costs of produce doubled, I think I would spend that $20 at the market real quick.

Exactly. Mechanization has gone pretty much as far as it can in most areas of farming and the use of brute labor is integral to our food supply. If the flow of illegal immigrants was suddenly stopped, food prices would go through the roof along with child care and house cleaning services. CA may well be paying a substantial sum for these immigrants but the entire country benefits from cheap food prices.

A comparable situation is employers like Walmart. They offer only a small percentage of their employees health coverage, this in turn creates higher health care costs for those companies that do offer health coverage as the uninsured are much more likely to use emergency care and delay care for minor issues that can often become major concerns.

If the US hadn't had such high levels of immigration during the last two decades, the SS crisis would come much quicker that it would have otherwise. They are what will keep many Americans from living in poverty during their so called golden years.

Immigrants are what made this country what it is and our only hope for the future rests on their backs. It's time to stop trashing them.

[bbarnhart]

A co-worker from out of town was complaining about the high-tech industry outsourcing jobs to foriegn countries and about too many work visas issued to foriegn workers here in the US.

What is unusual is that he is from India. He moved here when he was 25 and is living the good life with his US wife. Something tells me he doesn't want to lose it.

[Desertrat]

Sayhey, it might be that some $ figures are per capita?

'Rat