Great take on Arizona immigration flap via sports

"No jobs for illegals" means Tyson Foods and Cargill and ADM and a hundred others go out of business, and we're paying $14 for a head of lettuce.

 

I brought up the cheap labor aspect of this previously, but surely you're not advocating we do nothing, right? Even taking out the safety factor, which is the (red) meat of this legislation, your fiscal argument doesn't hold water because stemming the tide of illegals would save the country the billions and billions it spends each year supporting people who have broken the law to get here. For all the bitching the left does about how much the war is costing, long-term it's a drop in the bucket compared to the money we waste on services for illegals.

 

Hardly. Since the welfare reforms of 1996, illegals are entitled to emergency room care; and children born here can attend our schools. That's it. The wealth they create and the taxes they pay far outrun any costs we incur for public services. But no politics allowed.

 

Prove it. Numbers, plz.

 

You already have to provide legal proof of citizenship or right to work in the country when you change jobs. I'm not sure what a national ID card would change.

 

Two things:

(a) This is comically untrue,

(b) We need a guest worker program, but when politicians from border states bring this up, douchebags from places like Colorado and Wisconsin start screaming "amnesty!!!"

 

How is it untrue?

 

How is it untrue?

You say the cost of the war is a "drop in the bucket" compared to the cost of supporting illegal immigrants.

The estimated number of illegal immigrants in the US is somewhere around 11 million. No way to be sure, but that's the general estimate.

The cost of the war in Iraq alone - not counting Afghanistan -- is $12 billion a month.

So just for the numbers to be equal, that would mean we are spending more than a thousand dollars a month *per immigrant* for their education and medical care. And remember, the majority don't cost a dime in education because they are adults.

And illegal immigrants do pay taxes. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 50% to 75% pay federal, state, and local taxes. The IRS says about 6 million illegal immigrants file returns each year. They pay an estimated $7 billion to Social Security each year. With sales taxes, gas taxes etc. on a very meager income, they pay plenty of taxes. So, they're picking up part of the tab for their own education and medical costs.

So again, to just equal the cost of the war in Iraq, it would have to cost the rest of up more than $1000 per month per immigrant for their medical expenses and education beyond what they are already paying in taxes. And most of them are not getting an education here, and many of them pay their medical bills.

But you didn't say they were equal; you said the cost of the war was a "drop in the bucket" in comparison.

So, you want to back that up?

 

Sure. The costs of our operations in the Middle East will drop significantly once they wind down, which will likely happen when the next Republican is elected. But I highly doubt there will be any significant immigration reform by then, so the billions spent on illegal immigrants will continue and increase, due to inflation, if nothing else. Thus, in the long run, the cost of services for illegal immigrants will far outweigh the costs accrued in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Dude, just admit you were talking out of your ass and move on. It would have more dignity than this.

You're blaming the ongoing costs in Iraq on Democrats? And you are shifting the argument to "the costs of immigration would be higher than the war if there was no war?"

You are completely lost in the woods here.

 

I'm blaming the costs on back-to-back administrations that didn't/don't have the guts to prosecute the war effectively. If Obama wins a second term, then operations will likely wind down under him. If not, it'll be his successor. Eventually, the country will lose its will to continue banging its head against the wall and then we'll essentially give up, leaving only a small presence in the region. But there's no end in sight to the costs of illegal immigrants. Neither party wants reform, so you're not going to get a workable solution. Thus, those costs aren't going away. And I'm not shifting anything. I said in the original post that in the long run (the phrase you keep conveniently forgetting), money spent on services for illegals will greatly exceed the costs of our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

The current requirements are a joke - SS cards are ridiculously easy to forge. Trust me on that, I've got illegal friends.

The national ID they're talking about would be more secure than a passport and have a biometric component - completely impossible to forge unless you were willing to spend a ton of money.