Milton Friedman, Immigration, and the Welfare State

Kerry Howley | June 10, 2008

Bryan Caplan digs up that much-deployed, ill-considered, VDare-riffic Milton Friedman immigration quotation: "You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state." As it turns out, the quotation is even worse in context. When Friedman is offered the alternative of a status for immigrants that specifically excludes them from eligibility for welfare, he says:

I haven't really ever thought of that system. It's a new question. I very rarely get a new question, but I must admit that's a new question for me. And I haven't really thought about it a great deal, but my initial reaction is that it's a very undesirable proposal.

Caplan, appalled, notes how odd it is that the 87-year old policy virtuoso had never once considered the relationship between mobility rights and welfare eligibility. It shows: The most obvious problem with Phyllis Schlafly's favorite Friedman soundbite is that it is false. Residency and work rights are entirely logically and practically separable from citizenship and eligibility for subsidies or transfer payments.The interviewer knows this, and immediately offers Friedman a scenario in which immigrants would have access to labor markets but not unemployment checks.

Welfare eligibility is already limited by a set of criteria; it is possible to add citizenship to the list, while extending residency and work rights indefinitely. Whether this is desirable is up for debate; whether it is possible is not. Somehow, the 1996 welfare reform bill disqualified undocumented workers from nearly all means-tested government programs. But they continued to live and work here in the millions.

After having his prior comment decisively negated by the possbility raised in the follow-up, Friedman retreats to a nebulous invocation of nation-level equality. It's odd to see Friedman opting for increased equality within a particular nation state over mobility rights and global equality. As Caplan writes, this is totally out of character: "Normally, Friedman was eager to embrace any marginal measure in the direction of liberty. But on immigration, he bizarrely turned his wish for a "free society" into an argument against a compelling libertarian improvement over the status quo."

Friedman made a mistake, but it's not nearly as important a mistake as restrictionists might like. Schlafly wants the quote to mean that we cannot have any more immigration than we already have. But Friedman's slip-up neither says nor implies that you cannot have a greater rate of immigration and a welfare state. The United States does not have an especially high rate of immigrants as a percentage of our population; it's barely ahead of Sweden and Germany and considerably behind Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Switzerland. All the countries with more impressive rates of immigration, I'm guessing, are more generous in terms of welfare payments than is the United States. And they're all extremely successful economies. It's clearly possible to have a larger welfare state, a considerably higher rate of immigration, and a healthy economic climate.

On the other hand, we have little reason to believe that immigration itself encourages the growth of redistribution schemes. Quite the opposite; a number of recent studies support the idea that ethnic heterogeneity somewhat undermines support for transfers. In this very different sense, Milton Friedman might have been on to something: If you want to decrease the size of transfer payments, you should take Friedman to heart -- and support much, much higher rates of permanent immigration.

Update: And here is David Friedman exploring that very argument. Also here, courtesy of commenter MikeP.

Lant Pritchett responds to the offending Friedman quote here, and my article on Singaporean guest workers is here.

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|6.10.08 @ 2:54PM|#

Knowing that the leech sucking the milk of my tax dollars out of the public tit is native born gives me no comfort.

|6.10.08 @ 3:00PM|#

"You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state."

OK. Get rid of the welfare state. Problem solved.

Anymore babies for me to cut in half, holler.

PJ|6.10.08 @ 3:03PM|#

This article strikes me as terribly unthorough. Look at the employment rates for new immigrants in Sweden... Immigration to Sweden has been disastrous on almost all levels.

TallDave|6.10.08 @ 3:04PM|#

the alternative of a status for immigrants that specifically excludes them from eligibility for welfare

The socialists would never permit this to happen, because the present situation incentivizes a huge source of new relatively gov't-dependent voters for them.

The very mention of the idea will have them shrieking about immigrant children dying in the streets.

No Name Guy|6.10.08 @ 3:05PM|#

The welfare state here isn't nearly the level it is in Sweden, though. Its not even at Canada levels.

TallDave|6.10.08 @ 3:06PM|#

Remember, these are the people currently trying to define needs like food, clothing, and shelter as "human rights" that the government MUST provide.

MikeT|6.10.08 @ 3:06PM|#

When you actually get this through Congress, and keep it from getting struck down by bleeding-heart, liberal activist judges who call it a violation of the 14th amendment, let me know.

|6.10.08 @ 3:08PM|#

In this very different sense, Milton Friedman might have been on to something: If you want to decrease the size of transfer payments, you should take Friedman to heart -- and support much, much higher rates of permanent immigration.

Of you can leave it to Milton Friedman's son David to make the argument...

The redistributionist tendencies of modern states are an argument against free immigration, but also an argument for it. The argument against takes the level of redistribution as given and points out its effect on who migrates where and why. The other half of the argument reverses the causation by considering the effect of migration on levels of redistribution. The harder it is for people to move from one country to another, the more attractive redistributional policies are. The possibility of redistribution tends to increase inefficient migration, but the possibility of migration tends to decrease inefficient redistribution.

When you actually get this through Congress, and keep it from getting struck down by bleeding-heart, liberal activist judges who call it a violation of the 14th amendment, let me know.

The 1996 welfare reform bill is on the phone. It wants to talk with you.

No Name Guy|6.10.08 @ 3:14PM|#

I'd like to see a comparison of the use of welfare services by first and second generation immigrants vs. the native born. Anyone have one?

TallDave|6.10.08 @ 3:22PM|#

but the possibility of migration tends to decrease inefficient redistribution

Heh, good pount.

|6.10.08 @ 3:25PM|#

|6.10.08 @ 3:29PM|#

a,

Because Ron Paul published racist newsletters and this is considered opinion. But Milton Friedman didn't and it wasn't?

|6.10.08 @ 3:42PM|#

Anti-immigration types who run to the VDare-riffic Milton Friedman quotation may be amused by this transcription of Milton Friedman from his lecture "What is America"...

"If you have free immigration, in the way we had it before 1914, everybody benefited. The people who were here benefited. The people who came benefited. Because nobody would come unless he, or his family, thought he would do better here than he would elsewhere. And, the new immigrants provided additional resources, provided additional possibilities for the people already here. So everybody can mutually benefit."

"But on the other hand, if you come under circumstances where each person is entitled to a pro-rata share of the pot, to take an extreme example, or even to a low level or the pie, than the effect of that situation is that free immigration, would mean a reduction of everybody to the same, uniform level. Of course, I'm exaggerating, it wouldn't go quite that far, but it would go in that direction. And it is that perception, that leads people to adopt what at first seems like inconsistent values."

"Look, for example, at the obvious, immediate, practical example of illegal Mexican immigration. Now, that Mexican immigration, over the border, is a good thing. It's a good thing for the illegal immigrants. It's a good thing for the United States. It's a good thing for the citizens of the country. But, it's only good so long as its illegal."

"That's an interesting paradox to think about. Make it legal and it's no good. Why? Because as long as it's illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don't qualify for social security, they don't qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket. So long as they don't qualify they migrate to jobs. They take jobs that most residents of this country are unwilling to take. They provide employers with the kind of workers that they cannot get. They're hard workers, they're good workers, and they are clearly better off."

|6.10.08 @ 3:44PM|#

I'm curious why this position on immigration (which I oppose, btw) is a forgivable slip-up on Milton Friedman's part, but it's evidence of racism when Ron Paul or any of his associates voice it. Any takers?

Who is using anything beyond the newsletters to accuse RP of racism? I don't recall his immigration position, it and of itself, as being harped on as racist.

|6.10.08 @ 3:46PM|#

"You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state."

OK. Get rid of the welfare state. Problem solved.

So, your argument to the American people is to get rid of the welfare state, that they apparently like, so they can accommodate more immigrants, which they obviously don't want.

A word of advice - don't pursue a career in sales!

|6.10.08 @ 3:50PM|#

"That's an interesting paradox to think about. Make it legal and it's no good. Why? Because as long as it's illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don't qualify for social security, they don't qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket. So long as they don't qualify they migrate to jobs. They take jobs that most residents of this country are unwilling to take. They provide employers with the kind of workers that they cannot get. They're hard workers, they're good workers, and they are clearly better off."

Great argument by a great economist. Keep illegal immigration illegal (i.e. Don't open the borders!)

tarran|6.10.08 @ 3:52PM|#

Umm,

Pig Mannix, if the American people didn't want immigration, then you wouldn't have illegal immigrants showing up in the country: nobody would hire them. As this Everify crap shows - there are plenty of people happy to do business with immigrants.

Perhaps you should talk about impossibility of trading the welfare state that some people want for the immigration that some people don't want.

|6.10.08 @ 3:53PM|#

Keep illegal immigration illegal (i.e. Don't open the borders!)

I.e., don't enforce immigration law.

tarran|6.10.08 @ 3:56PM|#

Honestly all these arguments using the welfare state as a justification for keeping out immigrants also can be used to legislate against residents having children. Why not stop at immigration? Why not require everyone to get licenses to have babies a la Niven?

Wouldn't a growing population be a bad thing?

Or, is it just possible, that human beings, being producer or makers of wealth, are a benefit to a society that is organized such that they are allowed and encouraged to be productive?

How can you oppose immigration but not oppose unrestricted reproduction?

Orange Line Special|6.10.08 @ 3:58PM|#

I see others have show some of the ways that the post is horribly wrong, so I'll just note again that Drew Carey should try answering this next time he makes a video.

|6.10.08 @ 4:02PM|#

Why not stop at immigration? Why not require everyone to get licenses to have babies a la Niven?

Because making immigration illegal is a legitimate (technically, not necessarily morally) act of a nation state. Birth licensing is neither technically (at least in this country) nor morally legitimate.

I know you were simply reaching for a comparative example, but that one isn't very good.

economist|6.10.08 @ 4:05PM|#

To use the separate status idea here in the US you would have to amend the Constitution to make sure their kids born in the US couldn't receive welfare benefits or vote either. In any case, it wouldn't work. Now that voting has become a "basic right" any solution that allows a bunch of people into a country will ultimately give them influence on that country's government. Until we get rid of the welfare state, I'm agreeing with Friedman's sentiment.

|6.10.08 @ 4:07PM|#

The United States does not have an especially high rate of immigrants as a percentage of our population; it's barely ahead of Sweden and Germany and considerably behind Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Switzerland.

You forgot to mention that when European citizens have enough of having their governments inflicting massive immigration on them, they have a tendency to start voting in extremist right-wing politicians to do something about it. See Berlusconi in Italy, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, the Vlaams Belang in Belgium, and the BNP in Great Britain.

Some wit once said the problem with libertarians is that they've never advanced a policy proposal that would actually have the effect of increasing anyone's liberty. I expect some of them won't be happy until they've antagonized the citizenry into electing our very own Berlusconi.

Greg|6.10.08 @ 4:08PM|#

Yes, beware the increased PoliticalPower of the MexicanGovernment.

|6.10.08 @ 4:12PM|#

To use the separate status idea here in the US you would have to amend the Constitution to make sure their kids born in the US couldn't receive welfare benefits or vote either.

It doesn't require an amendment to legislate that native-born children of immigrants get welfare on the schedule of their parents, not on the schedule of a long-time citizen.

|6.10.08 @ 4:14PM|#

Incidentally, when I first hunted down Milton Friedman's full quotation, I too was as surprised as Bryan Caplan. Here's my comment from 2006...

First, it appears that this is not a well considered position of Friedman's.

Second, I for one question his premise. I do not think there is a problem with multiple classes of citizenship or residence, so long as the market itself is free. I do not confer special privileges upon the government or upon citizenship that in any way trump an individual's rights to migrate, reside, and labor where he wishes.

But third, it is already the case that most government services are not available to immigrants who are on short-term visas or who have not resided in the US for enough years. We are already living in the "blue card" world. I don't see the disaster Friedman predicts, nor do I see how that circumstance impinges in any way on a free society.

|6.10.08 @ 4:40PM|#

It sounds to me like Kerry Howley is arguing for keeping the welfare state. Her thesis seems to be that we can have lots of immigration AND lots of welfare at the same time. Here's a wild proposal: Free immigration and NO welfare state!

|6.10.08 @ 4:43PM|#

Make immigrants ineligible for welfare, social security, and medicare. Sounds good to me. It's surprising that Milton Friedman didn't think of it.

Of course, then it'd only be fair that they not have to pay taxes for these things either.

The beauty of this would be that chronic taxpayers could then renounce citizenship and reenter the system as immigrants, which would eventually end all this entitlement shit.

It sounds to me like Kerry Howley is arguing for keeping the welfare state.

Listen closer. She's arguing that the welfare state argument for limiting immigration is illegitimate.

|6.10.08 @ 5:41PM|#

It doesn't require an amendment to legislate that native-born children of immigrants get welfare on the schedule of their parents, not on the schedule of a long-time citizen.

As native-born children of immigrants are citizens just as much as children of natives, the Equal Protection Clause would say otherwise, no?

RC Dean,

Exactly. You're never going to be able to pass legislation allowing ERs to turn away immigrants, nor legislation exempting the children of immigrants from compulsory schooling.

To me, the welfare argument isn't the most compelling one. To me, the far scarier prospect is that of massive unlimited immigration from illiberal nations resulting in third-world-style elections in some parts of the US.

|6.10.08 @ 5:55PM|#

As native-born children of immigrants are citizens just as much as children of natives, the Equal Protection Clause would say otherwise, no?

If that's the case, then where the hell is my welfare check.

Welfare legislation is chock full of requirements, qualifications, and provisos. Adding "children are not qualified to receive welfare that their parents are not qualified to receive" hardly seems like much of a reach, much less unconstitutional.

|6.10.08 @ 6:06PM|#

Aside from the actual check-writing forms of social support, you cannot exclude illegal immigrants from all kinds of other tax-payer supported benefits/services, including the two big ones:

(1) School.
(2) Health care.

Any discussion of this issue that doesn't take this into account probably isn't worth reading.

It is always amusing how a long list is promised, but the list produced always has exactly these two elements.

Since the first is a pittance in the grand scheme of health care expenditures, and the second is considered the state's investment in the adults of tomorrow, these hardly provide much argument against the much larger economic benefits for the US.

I should also note that, if migration were actually free, then immigrants would do what they had done for decades before the recent crackdowns on border crossing: They would leave their families at home where it was cheaper, work for a few seasons or a few years, and return when they had earned what they wanted. Then there would be fewer full families in the US needing health care or education.

|6.10.08 @ 6:58PM|#

The Welfare state isn't going any where any time soon. Deal with it. It includes everything from government schools, to emergency rooms in hospitals. Importing millions of poor people only grows the state. In fact immigration is the VIAGRA of the state. According to the New England Journal of medicine over 80 hospitals in California have closed due to non payment by illegal aliens. Kerry Howley are her ilk are divorced from reality.

|6.10.08 @ 7:03PM|#

According to the New England Journal of medicine over 80 hospitals in California have closed due to non payment by illegal aliens.

Cite? Considering the piece of crap article I saw last time someone suggested such evidence, I wait with both dread and glee.

|6.10.08 @ 7:14PM|#

The only crap I see is your BS.

Illegals threaten Medical system

|6.10.08 @ 7:28PM|#

Simply divorced from reality is the only way to describe open border loons. Maybe Kerry Howley would like to move to the Burbs in Paris where women are being attacked for not wearing proper Islamic dress.

NO FREEDOM WITHOUT BORDER PATROL

|6.10.08 @ 7:32PM|#

Illegals threaten Medical system

Oh, yeah. That's the one. I notice that the venue has been downgraded from the high falutin' New England Journal of Medicine to something... else.

Here's what I wrote last time this article came up. Please let me know if any of these references have since sprouted supporting facts...

What unadulterated crap.

We'll just start with the fact that there is absolutely no source for the statistics in the snippet you quote. A similar statement earlier in the article ("84 California hospitals are closing their doors") does claim a source. Readers of the the source article will find absolutely no mention of immigrants, illegal immigrants, or the like. You will instead find the following:

Like other hospitals that have closed down, RFK Medical Center was hit by rising costs for nurses to fill state-mandated nurse-to-patient ratios that went into effect in January and the heavy expense of seismic retrofitting required by state law.

Stahl said RFK Medical Center's emergency room, which serves 24,000 patients a year, was not a major financial drain now, but officials worried that it could become one if the hospital remained open.

The rest of the article is a diatribe against illegal immigrants that must be read to be believed. In contrast to the authoritative name of the journal it appears in, it was not written by a medical doctor and has only a passing association with medicine.

|6.10.08 @ 7:37PM|#

I do note that the worldnetdaily article didn't use Madeleine Cosman's suggested acronym CRAG for her prescription for a solution. The WND article instead changed it to CRAP.

Make of that what you will...

|6.10.08 @ 7:42PM|#

I think the Holocaust may have colored some of Friedman's thinking on this issue. But Kerry does hit the nail on the head. Racism has been and will continue to be a powerful tool against the welfare state in a heterogeneous society such as America. Who can honestly argue that it wasn't a factor in the overwhelming support for Welfare Reform? The rise of Mexican political power is sounding the death knell of Affirmative Action. Now, in more homogeneous cultures, where socialism is more ingrained, the likely response is to attack the immigrants/minorities themselves, not so much the programs. I think that's what we are seeing happening in Europe, and that's probably what Friedman feared.

economist|6.10.08 @ 7:45PM|#

I'm worried that immigration from socialist nations would seal the deal for a left-populist coalition.
Then again, we might already be there, so why give a damn?

GILMORE|6.10.08 @ 7:51PM|#

economist | June 10, 2008, 7:45pm | #

I'm worried that immigration from socialist nations...

Like the chinese, who are the hardest working capitalists the world has ever known?

Ever met a chinese immigrant ever asking for a socialized state? They've been here for generations. More come every year. Your point ignores the fact that people leave socialist nations for the very reason that they are socialist nation.

duh

The response from the LoneWacko types is basically that we need to become a 'fascist nation' to prevent the nonexistent threat you propose.

|6.10.08 @ 7:52PM|#

Even the pro illegal immigration paper the Los Angeles Times has reported on the 80+ hospitals closing due to non payment by illegal aliens.

This is so absurd. Been to an inner city emergency room. It's hard to find anyone that speaks English.

Some basic facts here. The Reason Foundation gets lots donations from Corporate America. People that demand their cheap labor ie corporate welfare. They take all the gains that the cheap labor provides and dump all the cost on the American taxpayer.

|6.10.08 @ 7:56PM|#

Even the pro illegal immigration paper the Los Angeles Times has reported on the 80+ hospitals closing due to non payment by illegal aliens.

Cite? Or is it yet another pointer to the same Cosman piece in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

If you read that thread where I first discussed Cosman's article, I asked again and again for a single example of a hospital anywhere in the country that closed due to nonpayment by illegal immigrants. I even admitted several times that I would not be surprised to hear of one. But no one could show me one, much less 84.

|6.10.08 @ 8:00PM|#

MikeP, you don't have an argument. The free flow of goods and services is fine! Free trade. Goods and services expire. Get used up. People have consequences. Ask the Europeans how they like all their new immigrants from Muslim lands. They're going to be in a Civil War in the next 25years as the Muslims start trying to impose Sharia law.

GILMORE|6.10.08 @ 8:03PM|#

William R | June 10, 2008, 8:00pm | #

Anytime you call out any of these immigration psychos on actual facts, they resort to the "cultural apocalypse" theory. e.g. the Paris Is Burning thing from yesterday.

If everything is so self evident, why can't you actually find the article about the 80+ hospitals that were cashiered due to overserving illegal hispanics?

|6.10.08 @ 8:09PM|#

Yea sure Gilmore. Hilarious. You're as clueless as MikeP.

Libertarians case against open borders

Kolohe|6.10.08 @ 8:09PM|#

Aside from the actual check-writing forms of social support, you cannot exclude illegal immigrants from all kinds of other tax-payer supported benefits/services, including the two big ones:

(1) School.
(2) Health care.

Just to speak to #1, (most) schools are paid for by property taxes, both commerical and residential.

If your living in an area, your paying property taxes, either directly or indirectly.

Kolohe|6.10.08 @ 8:10PM|#

another fine example of public skool education that was, indeed.

GILMORE|6.10.08 @ 9:29PM|#

William R | June 10, 2008, 8:09pm | #

Yea sure Gilmore. Hilarious. You're as clueless as MikeP.

If only because you dont supply any 'clues' to support your assertions.

Seriously, wheres these reports of bankrupted hospitals? We're open to convincing, just make some effort to prove your point.

Or, just continue to make bullshit statements.

|6.10.08 @ 11:34PM|#

Gilmore ever hear of Google. There are an endless supply of articles on the California hospital problem due to illegal immigration.

Westside Hospital seeks bankruptcy protection

highnumber|6.10.08 @ 11:56PM|#

William R,
You're another parody commenter, yes?

Everyone else,
I clicked the freeper link so you don't have to. It has an excerpt from a LA Times piece. Here is the excerpt in its entirety:

Brotman Medical Center, a key healthcare provider serving Los Angeles' Westside, is expected to seek protection from creditors in Bankruptcy Court as early as next week, according to three executives familiar with the matter.

Administrators at the 420-bed hospital in Culver City have tried for months to avoid filing a bankruptcy petition but have continued struggling to pay its growing debt.

Brotman became the center of a firestorm last month when state health inspectors released a report finding that doctors and nurses failed to provide proper care to a mentally disabled woman, who died after a series of medical mistakes.

The medical center is expected to file under bankruptcy provisions that will give management more time to fix its financial problems.

Since 1996, more than 70 community hospitals have closed across the state, with a disproportionate share -- more than 50 -- in Southern California. Regionally, 14 emergency rooms have closed in the last five years, including 10 in Los Angeles County.

The link to the full article is dead, but I imagine that if it actually mentioned undocumented immigrants causing the bankruptcy directly, the outstanding publication would have included it in the excerpt.

I don't care anyway. Freaking nationalists. Get over it.

|6.11.08 @ 12:09AM|#

Highnumber, you're another delusional crank??

|6.11.08 @ 12:13AM|#

But Friedman's slip-up neither says nor implies that you cannot have a greater rate of immigration and a welfare state.

Sure - because freedom and anti-statism mean petitioning the government to impose policies that couldn't be passed by referendum in any nation on earth. Gotcha!

Mike Laursen|6.11.08 @ 2:21AM|#

More likely explanation of what caused Westside's financial problems as William R's presumption: All hospitals in California were given an unfunded mandate from the state government to seismically update or shut down. Many of them have had to find funding for major construction, and hire contractors from the same limited pool of firms that are working on all of the other hospital construction projects.

Andy|6.11.08 @ 2:23AM|#

William R - why is he a crank? He's not the one saying that the country needs to listen to him or it will destroy itself. Also, why is he delusional? People have asked several times for more sources that support your arguments. A delusional person would just assume they were right.

Also, can you at least agree that problems of this type are a result of both bad immigration AND healthcare policies? Just as European problems are at least partly a result of their cultural attitudes and economic policies and not just too much Muslim immigration?

uk visa|6.11.08 @ 6:14AM|#

The title supports the illusion that the US has a welfare state - it doesn't.
In a supposedly civilised country - not having universal free health care for children is shameful.
The US can afford it and showing compassion and human decency, especially to the young, is something the US could work harder on.

|6.11.08 @ 9:19AM|#

Now even the natives are getting it. They talk about proposals to take the country back from us since we do not have written permission to stay here and certainly have no work permits issued by the REAL American natives. Can that be? Do they have the right to give us Americans the boot? I think they can, let's be careful with this smear column and think what we are getting us into. If the natives start thinking like you idiots here, you will be on the next plane to somewhere. See who YOU like that!

|6.11.08 @ 10:19AM|#

I posted two different sources. They don't like them because it destroys their utopian fantasy of open borders.

|6.11.08 @ 10:34AM|#

Mike Laursen you're in denial. Basic economics 101.

Even the very pro illegal alien paper the NY Times was writing about the problem six years ago.

Hospitals feeling strain from illegal immigration

|6.11.08 @ 11:11AM|#

I posted two different sources.

You posted a summary of an article (not from the NEJM) whose references do not in any way support what the article says. Then you posted a piece of an article that says nothing about illegal aliens.

At first I thought the meaning of "source" was the main problem.

But now you post an article that talks about strain, so maybe it's the meaning of "close" that's the problem.

|6.11.08 @ 11:18AM|#

MikeP, face it, you don't know what you're talking about.

Just why on earth do you think the Governors of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas have all lobbied in Washington DC for the Federal Government to start propping up their hospitals. I mean, Arnold wants DC to start paying for all of Californias health care. A little hint, it ain't because all their hospitals are so poorly run. It's because they're providing medical care for millions of Mexicans.

|6.11.08 @ 11:35AM|#

Not to repeat every post on that last thread where the impact of illegal immigrants on hospitals was discussed, but I do recognize that illegal immigrants strain hospitals. I further recognize that illegal immigrants settle in poorer communities where the hospitals already must deal with uncompensated care, and thus the new immigrants can be the straws that break the camel's back.

But the solution to uncompensated federal mandates straining hospitals is not closing the borders. It is compensation.

I argue that the cost of health care for illegal immigrants is much, much less than their contribution to the US economy. There may well be a need for the US economy to transfer some of that gain to hospitals that are required to give uncompensated care.

|6.11.08 @ 12:11PM|#

Their contribution to the economy is way over blown. In fact a good case can be made illegals are a huge drain on the economy! Bottom line, those that push the idea they're good for the economy are the people that benefit from them. Big agriculture, Hospitality(hotel restaurant) and housing(construction) spend millions in DC lobbying for an endless supply of cheap labor. Subsidized labor. Privatize the gains that come with that labor and socialize the expense that it creates. Again we return to PEOPLE HAVE CONSEQUENCES. Goods and services expire--get used up. Laissez faire in goods and services. Yes to that!!!

Border control -- at your front door, or along Interstate 19 from Nogales. So long as there are collectivists anxious and able to infiltrate our ranks and subvert our rights under the guise of "one-man, one-vote democracy" ... there can be no freedom without it.

|6.11.08 @ 12:31PM|#

In fact a good case can be made illegals are a huge drain on the economy!

Sigh... Another claim. Another dearth of evidence.

Invisible Finger|6.11.08 @ 3:00PM|#

More welfare results in more immigration. The work still has to be done.

highnumber|6.11.08 @ 7:50PM|#

MikeP, face it, you don't know what you're talking about.

I'd be a billionaire once over if I had a billion dollars every time that was said to Mike P about immigration issues.

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