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|5.3.06 @ 1:12PM|#
But they are adding billions to the federal and state coffers illegally! What about all those who waited years and years to immigrate and legally pay taxes? Is that really fair to them?!
But seriously, why don't the pro-immigration crowd bring this up more as a talking point? I rarely hear it said...
|5.3.06 @ 1:43PM|#
I seriously question the facts of this article... I believe that the Medicaid program is run by the states, regardless of the '96 law. Mnay states do not enforce the law and illegals have access to the welfare. The IRS has no record of the hundreds of thousands of illegals who are paid in cash... they also strain our resources, medical, schools, food stamps, etc.I'm told, many of the illegals who do "pay income taxes" claim 12/15 dependant exemptions, thus have no witholding... also, those who file, probably do so to claim the tax credit!
Larry A|5.3.06 @ 1:58PM|#
So the Federal government's IRS is legally giving Jose a number so he can declare and pay taxes on income the INS will send Jose and me to prison for if I pay him.
My head hurts. I think I'd rather keep the illegals and get rid of Congress.
The IRS has no record of the hundreds of thousands of illegals who are paid in cash... they also strain our resources, medical, schools, food stamps, etc.I'm told, many of the illegals who do "pay income taxes" claim 12/15 dependant exemptions, thus have no witholding... also, those who file, probably do so to claim the tax credit!
And I would guess that there are far more "legals" who do the above.
I live in Texas, where we see the "problem" close up. If 2 out of 3 illegals pay income taxes, almost all of them pay property taxes on whatever they rent to live in, and all of them pay sales taxes, then the economic argument against them is BS.
|5.3.06 @ 2:07PM|#
Many states do not enforce the law and illegals have access to the welfare.
Quite so. I know, or knew, a fair-sized bunch of illegal aliens from Mexico and most got some sort of welfare, usually medical care and food stamps, the single guys less so than the families. Most worked for cash, but a lot worked in restaurants and probably had deductions. On the other hand, I also know, or knew, a whole bunch of regular citizens who get/got welfare under false pretenses, usually via bogus disabilities. As far as I can tell, most people getting state welfare of various sorts do so under false pretenses and/or because they prefer to spend their money on booze and gambling rather than food and rent. The welfare system is far more fucked up than are the illegal aliens.
/anecdotal evidence
The Wine Commonsewer|5.3.06 @ 2:09PM|#
In some respects it's a question of balance. Much of the tax flow from illegals goes to the social security system, ie the feds. Any social services comes out of local funds. OTOH, it is also true that illegals pay sales taxes and other indirect taxes each time they buy something. That brings some money to the localities providing services, but the bulk of that tax goes to the state as well. The state, in general, is not providing the services, the localities are. However, if you simply abolished social services for everyone, the problem would be solved. Except it wouldn't because the whole economic argument is simply a rationale or justification. The reality is that 90% of all Americans don't want anyone immigrating here.
Timothy|5.3.06 @ 2:23PM|#
Here in Texas there isn't state income tax, so illegals who are renting and buying stuff are paying the same taxes to the state that any citizen pays. Larry's right, at least in the lonestar state, there's not much of an argument that they don't pay taxes but still get local welfare services.
|5.3.06 @ 2:24PM|#
I wonder how untaxed under-the-table cash jobs would change if we could magically deport every illegal alien? I have a feeling they'd remain under-the-table cash jobs even if they were performed by citizens.
R C Dean|5.3.06 @ 2:52PM|#
they prefer to spend their money on booze and gambling rather than food and rent
Who doesn't?
Carter|5.3.06 @ 3:24PM|#
"The only services that illegals can still get are emergency medical care and K-12 education."
"What's more, aliens who are not self-employed have Social Security and Medicare taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks. Since undocumented workers have only fake numbers, they'll never be able to collect the benefits these taxes are meant to pay for."
Those statements are false (Will you pring a correction anywhere? I doubt it), in many states Medicare dollars are spent on illegals, and not just for emergency services. In the state of Washington, for example, $32 million in federal money spent was spent on care for pregnant illegals, despite rules requring the spending to be limited to childbirth. The state was also spending Medicare funds on non-emergency care for illegals such as acne treatments and ingrown toenails. Also the children of illegals are US citizens, and they can collect medicare.
But put aside the factual innacuracies for a moment, isn't Shikha Dalmia in favor of legalization? Because if illegals were granted citizenship, then they would begin taking out more from Medicare and Social Security than they put in.
Or perhaps Dalmia doesn't want to grant citizenship to illegals? And instead favors an ever expanding sub-citizen caste that citizens can exploit for cheap labor? He/she should tell us. I think Dalmia should also declare his/her immigration status, in the interests of full disclosure. It would be a shame if Dalmia were disguising a conflict of interest in this matter.
|5.3.06 @ 5:33PM|#
"He/she should tell us. I think Dalmia should also declare his/her immigration status,"
Dalmia's a "she".
I wonder if Carter would be as curious about the author's immigration status if she were name "Constance".
|5.3.06 @ 5:49PM|#
So these illegal aliens have false Social Security numbers for tax purposes? If the IRS knows they are false then how about some action on the people who employ these illegal aliens.
Larry A|5.3.06 @ 6:27PM|#
So these illegal aliens have false Social Security numbers for tax purposes? If the IRS knows they are false then how about some action on the people who employ these illegal aliens.
|5.3.06 @ 6:38PM|#
I know this is somewhat OT, but could someone explain to me why the ship-em-back types are so hung up on this "they're breaking the law!" argument? It seems like every time I give Hannity or Savage a listen, they're getting all frothy about how we can't let illegals stay because they're "criminals" and "broke our laws to come here" etc. The same argument is trotted out by a law prof., John Eastman, in a Fed Soc debate at http://www.fed-soc.org/pdf/immigrationreform4.pdf.
Is this just a convenient debating point or do the people making this argument have some sincere basis for focusing on "law breaking" as grounds for kicking out Mexicans, I mean illegal aliens?
|5.3.06 @ 7:05PM|#
In California every student in the public school system costs the state about $7,000 per year. Let's assume that an illegal alien earns $10 per hour ($400 per week, $20,800 per year). If that illegal has just one kid in school then he/she is DEEP into the pocket of the California services benefits, and let's face it, kids are like potato chips, nobody can have just one.
The forgoing ignores all the other goodies like food stamps and general welfare and basic medical care at the local emergency room.
The feds ought to start enforcing the law against employers. Arrest the management of companies that hire illegals, and fine the companies $10,000 for every illegal on the payroll. Throw the owners and the corporate officers in jail for 90 days each for the first offense. The problem would be solved in short order.
|5.3.06 @ 7:31PM|#
jp, you are being facetious i take it??
does the "hls" in your email address stand for Harvard Law School??
|5.3.06 @ 8:21PM|#
No, I'm totally serious. I don't get why "they broke the law" is supposed to be a debate-stopper.
(my email address is the fruit of my random brain, btw)
|5.3.06 @ 8:28PM|#
Wayne, I was going to make the same point. Even if an illegal pays taxes, unless they are making around $40k + 20k per dependant, they are taking out far more than they are putting in. This is true of US citizens as well.
Sure, illegals pay property tax - on hovels divided among a half-a-dozen people. The fifty bucks they contribute per person each year won't buy one day of school for their kids.
|5.3.06 @ 11:30PM|#
The feds ought to start enforcing the law against employers. Arrest the management of companies that hire illegals, and fine the companies $10,000 for every illegal on the payroll. Throw the owners and the corporate officers in jail for 90 days each for the first offense. The problem would be solved in short order.
No, it would not be solved, Wayne. What would happen is that more businesses would be done under the shadows. Most businesses that could not hire immigrants would be out of business rather quickly - if the wanted result was that these companies hire American citizens, the unintended consequence will be that neither the Americans nor the immigrants will have a job.
Understand one thing, Wayne: as more interventionist becomes the government, the worse the problem becomes.
In California every student in the public school system costs the state about $7,000 per year. Let's assume that an illegal alien earns $10 per hour ($400 per week, $20,800 per year). If that illegal has just one kid in school then he/she is DEEP into the pocket of the California services benefits[...]
In that case, for consistency's sake, California should deport any person (citizen or not) that cannot make more than $27,800.00 a year. Your argument is pretty silly.
Francisco "Viva Villa" Torres
|5.4.06 @ 4:09AM|#
as more interventionist becomes the government, the worse the problem becomes.
That may be true, but
Your argument is pretty silly.
no, it isn't silly. Not even a little bit, if you do the math.
The whole idea behind our welfare state is wealth redistribution. You take money from some people and give it to others.
Mexicans predominantly come in as part of that class of people who get. Their income tax rates -- if in fact they're paying any -- are at the bottom of the scale.
No way in hell do I believe are they paying in more than they get out of the system.
I live in Arizona, and I know for a fact that many, many of them are working under the table. Around here they have their own construction crews (nobody involved who isn't Mexican). Maybe one or two of them can speak English at all. And to create a legit business front, so they can work, maybe 1/4 of their income at most gets reported. I know because they all talk about it......
In the end I'm bascially in favor of working out a solution that lets them work here if they want to. But the anti-immigrant crowd's concerns are not entirely baseless. They aren't going to be swayed unless their legit concerns are addressed honestly.
I have to call BS on this one Shikha. I don't know where you got your data, but it doesn't match up at all with what I see happening on the street every day.
|5.4.06 @ 4:15AM|#
btw, slightly OT, the whole student visa business still burns me, fifteen years after I got out of grad school.
I'm an engineer so most of my class mates were from China or India. I was often the only American in class, and that includes the prof. That's fine though.
What burns me is that all us grad students got paid the same stipends but the international students paid some tiny little tax out of theirs, while I got socked for everything including social security. It made a nearly $600 a month difference in take home pay.
These were foreign students, not all of whom stayed here, and their stipends come out of taxes one way or another. Yet they basically got paid $600 a month more than I did to go to grad school....
This is not right. Anybody who comes to this country should have to pay the same taxes as any American.
|5.4.06 @ 4:54AM|#
One more btw, many around here say that Mexican immigrants don't harm the pay checks of Americans, take jobs away from them, or to that effect. That's pure BS, which I know because I've been there.
I did construction work before going to college, then did it part time and summers on the way through my undergrad. I saw first hand Mexican labor take work away from US citizens, and also lower their wages. But you have to understand how it works, because it's not just that Mexicans will take less per hour.
Unskilled Mexican laborers work dirt cheap. They must, because they can't speak English so it's hard getting them to do anything productive. But skilled Mexican construction workers don't take much less per hour than Americans do.
Still, Mexican constructions crews will frequently under bid legit American crews, coming in at 1/2 to 2/3 as much on a given job. Why? Because the Mexican crews are paying little to no taxes. In the bigger cities they float around from one area to another, and it's got to be near-impossible for the government to track them down.
If the immigrant crews paid the same overhead as Americans do, they'd only be marginally cheaper. That margin often gets eaten up by the fact that they make lots of mistakes because they can't speak much English and don't have much education. But they can bid low by dodging the taxes, so even if you have to pay to fix a few mistakes, they're still cheaper than American crews.
American construction workers are feeling this every day. I was one of them.
The real problem, of course, isn't the Mexicans. In a free market their liabilities would balance out their willingness to take a little less pay. The real problem is that our government has bloated the cost of doing legit business in this country.
I've seen American construction workers driven to avoid taxes etc, just to compete.
|5.4.06 @ 5:06AM|#
Okay, this is the end of my rant. As I said, I'm ultimately in favor of finding a fair way of letting them come here and work. But the existing setup is simply not fair, and there are legit reasons for being opposed to massive Mexican immigration as things stand.
I get annoyed with all this babble about how the anti-immigrant crowd is just imagining things that aren't true. I don't believe the people who are saying so, have ever been in jobs where they were competing head to head with these immigrants, so they have absolutely no clue what's really going on out there.