Boggle
Former President Bill “Bubba” Clinton just weighed in with an opinion so divorced from current reality that it makes my mind boggle. He says that to reduce the deficit we need more immigrants.
Clinton said that one key to avoiding massive debt is to maintain a good ratio between people paying into the system, and those receiving payouts. That means more jobs and more people working, he said. “Which to me means more immigrants.”
Holy guacamole Batman, where do I begin?
How about … let’s not talk about bringing people in to compete with our homegrown workers until we get our unemployment figures OUT OF DOUBLE DIGITS!??!?!
Yes, we need more people working (and paying taxes) … but to do that we have to have the jobs to fill, and rignt now we just do not have them. Primarily because the people who run businesses are running scared (and confused) about the cost of doing business. They literally do not know how much the next employee will cost them due to the new healthcare plan. They also do not know how much other overhead costs may be increased while the goverment is taking about “cap and trade”.
If we need to collect more in taxes, Bubba, we do indeed need more people working. So let’s STOP PERSECUTING THOSE WHO CREATE THE JOBS!
But … it’s the final paragraph in this article that truely made my head darned near explode:
Clinton didn’t mention it, but it’s not just legal immigrants who contribute to the plus side of the Treasury’s balance sheet. In fact, undocumented immigrants are even more lucrative for the government, particularly Social Security. Many undocumented workers have payroll taxes automatically withheld from their wages, but because they use fake numbers, never collect the benefits.
Ok, many undocumented workers are working “under the table” (usually out of the Home Depot parking lot) doing day labor jobs for cash. Undercutting local workers because they can take less than minimum wage and aren’t costing their employers donations to workers comp and all those other paycheck deductions.
Not to mention the goverment bennies that the illegals get because the goverment WILL NOT ASK THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THOSE APPLYING FOR BENEFITS such a food stamps, medical care, and yes, welfare.
The illegals, as a group, are definately pulling out far more goverment dollars from the system than they (as a group) are paying in.
The ideas put forward in this Huffington Post piece are so far out of phase with the current realities we are facing that it is positively Orwellian in it’s audacity. More immigrants means more people working. Illegal immigrants are supporting the government with their taxes. I suppose ignorance really is strength….
