“Illegal aliens are costing Georgia taxpayers over a billion dollars a year.”
The above quote came from a political ad on behalf of Nathan Deal, a former congressman from Georgia now running for governor of that state. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution analyzed that statement and concluded it was half true. In fact, the newspaper’s analysis said it was virtually impossible to come up with the real costs of illegal immigration.
Most analyses of illegal immigration’s cost use different numbers, depending on the point of view of the analyzer. Applying context or changing the data slightly, can create entirely different impressions, and the numbers can be off by a lot, the paper says. For instance, the newspaper says, if you lump legal and illegal immigrants together, as a group they bring in more taxes than they use up over the long term. That casts doubt on those who believe they are paying taxes to support illegal immigrants.
Another point: Those who advocate sealing the borders and mass deportation of the illegals already here may tally the costs of education by including children born in the U.S. to illegal parents. Is the U.S. obligated to educate them, or not?
The bottom line is that there is no way to get an objective, accurate measure of the costs – or benefits – of illegal immigration. If immigrants of any status are indeed contributing more taxes than they are using, it’s probably safe to presume much of what they are paying is sales taxes. And some analyses include the taxes companies embed in the prices of their goods and services. After all, these folks have to buy things here, right?
VET THE FAIR TAX
Given that, why then would we not want to vet the proposal to create a Fair Tax in this country? In a nutshell, the Fair Tax would eliminate all income, corporate and Social Security and other taxes at the federal level, and replace them with a 23% sales or consumption tax on all purchases of new goods. According to www.fairtax.org, “Americans” would get an annual prebate of taxes paid on necessities, like food staples. The plan would eliminate the taxes embedded in the prices of goods and services so, in theory, the 23% sales tax would not increase prices of goods.
Imagine if the millions of illegal immigrants in this country were paying 23% sales tax on everything they buy here? Because they aren’t “Americans,” they would not get the prebate. How long would it take for them to help the U.S. out of its debt crisis? Ironically, many proponents of the Fair Tax also favor sealing the borders and deporting all illegals.
In bad economic times, innocent people get badly hurt. They become fed up when things don’t improve quickly and look for someone to blame. Illegal immigrants are taking the heat from those vents. The U.S. immigration policy is inconsistent and uneven, and people find their way in, and probably always will, no matter how diligently we, as a nation, enforce the law.
Illegal immigration is a U.S. BUSINESS-DRIVEN issue, not an immigrant-driven issue. The vast majority who come here are desperate for a better life. They work hard and, yes, they send much of their hard-earned money back home to take care of family there. Some bear children here. If we don’t like that, perhaps we can revise the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to require children born here to have at least one biological parent be a U.S. citizen, before they would get citizenship. That would then mean changing the laws about compulsory education to exempt non-citizen children. How easy would that be? Will that chase the parents back to their native land? Do we just deport these kids when they are adults, even though they had nothing to do with their situation, and may hardly speak their “native” language? What if some of them turned into brilliant innovators, even without a formal education?
The next time you rail against illegal immigration, think about these things: would you do the jobs they are now doing for what they are being paid? To them, the pay is much more than they can earn in their native lands. If there are no jobs, most immigrants will not come. Also, if someone is taking care of your yard, or helping to remodel your home, do you care more whether they are legal, or whether they will do a good job for you at a reasonable price?
Peter
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