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Study pegs cost of immigration bill’s mass legalization at $6.3 trillion
Published May 06, 2013
FoxNews.com
The comprehensive immigration overhaul being taken up in the Senate this week could cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion if 11 million illegal immigrants are granted legal status, according to a long-awaited estimate by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
The cost would arise from illegal immigrants tapping into the government's vast network of benefits and services, many of which are currently unavailable to them. This includes everything from standard benefits like Social Security and Medicare to dozens of welfare programs ranging from housing assistance to food stamps.
The report was obtained in advance by Fox News.
"No matter how you slice it, amnesty will add a tremendous amount of pressure on America's already strained public purse," Robert Rector, the Heritage scholar who prepared the report, said in a statement.
The study is already coming under criticism from some groups and economists who challenge its assumptions, claiming the legalization would help fuel economic growth. Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint, though, defended the study ahead of its release Monday morning.
"There's no way you can look at this and say that it's good for the American taxpayer," he told Fox News.
The numbers could raise additional concerns for Republicans as a Senate committee prepares to consider the legislation later this week.
The comprehensive study, aside from looking at benefits, also factored in the cost of public education and other services like highways and police. The government is already providing some of those services to illegal immigrants, so the $6.3 trillion figure would not represent all new costs.
But most of that cost would be new spending, according to Heritage, as illegal immigrants gain access to additional government programs. The study acknowledges that, for a 10-year period, illegal immigrants seeking a reprieve would be barred from these benefits. After that window, though, Heritage forecasts the costs skyrocketing.
On an annual basis, the report estimates the cost will be $106 billion after the interim phase is over. In the course of their lifetime, the report estimates that illegal immigrant households would receive an average of $592,000 in government benefits.
The $6.3 trillion figure is based on what illegal immigrants would cost the government over the course of their lifetime. It factors in the expected $3.1 trillion in taxes they'd pay to the government.
Supporters of immigration legislation have been skeptical of efforts to assign a cost to the immigration bill. Proponents argue that the value of bringing millions of illegal immigrants out of the shadows and presumably into the taxpaying workforce is immeasurable.
Economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said the Heritage study ignores key factors like the possibility of illegal immigrants moving up the economic ladder.
"There's no upward mobility," he told FoxNews.com. "They're frozen" in low-paying jobs.
Holtz-Eakin said the estimate assumes "no American dream" for those who attain legal status.
Stephen Moore, an economist and Wall Street Journal writer, said many economists challenge the notion that immigrants are a net cost to the country. He told Fox News despite the Heritage findings, there are other studies showing the legalization will be an economic boon that could grow the economy -- in turn alleviating the country's deficit problem.
"You've got to look at both sides of the equation," Moore said. "Yes, the immigrants will use benefits, no question about that, but as they become more productive citizens and they come out of the shadows, a lot of economists -- myself included -- think they'll become more productive and they'll pay more taxes."
He noted many immigrants are entrepreneurial, starting businesses that grow the economy.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a key co-author of the legislation, has also stressed that illegal immigrants applying for legal status would not have access to federal benefits while they are applying.
After obtaining a green card, they would still be ineligible for many federal benefits for five years.
The legislation also might not legalize all 11 million illegal immigrants. Some could be disqualified if they have a felony record or other problems in their background.
Heritage claims its estimate is on the conservative end.
"Those who claim that amnesty will not create a large fiscal burden are simply in a state of denial concerning the underlying redistributional nature of government policy in the 21st century," the report said.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...#ixzz2SXQVh5Jo.
Sessions to Propose Flurry of Amendments to Immigration Bill
Friday, 03 May 2013 01:37 PM
By David Yonkman, Washington Correspondent
Sen. Jeff Sessions, a leading critic of the "Gang of Eight" immigration reform bill is readying a flurry of amendments ahead of the bill's mark-up, predicting the bipartisan bill would attract tens of millions of new immigrants to the United States.
"There are so many problems with the legislation that it’s hard to know where to start," Sessions said during a conference call with reporters. "We really need to take the time to examine this 844-page legislation."
The Alabama Republican said he is readying an amendment to the Senate bill’s proposal on "chained migration" — which would expand eligibility for family members of immigrants, resulting in 30 million new arrivals over the next 10 years, according to Sessions.
Sessions said other amendments that he will offer would deal with border security and visa programs.
He said the bill’s expanded visa programs would dramatically increase the future flow of low-skill workers, bringing in an additional 25 million immigrants.
"These numbers give real warning to the American people about what is about to occur," he said.
Sessions said the wave of immigrants would decrease wages and reduce job prospects for American workers, especially in low-skilled jobs.
Sessions pledged to work to make the Senate bill secure the borders, require employers to verify worker eligibility, crack down on legal immigrants who overstay visas, and modernize the legal immigration system.
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Gee, can't wait to welcome 55,000,000 "immigrants".
Soonerjeepman
5/6/2013, 01:47 PM
but, but they are paying $2,000 and back taxes...right? that's what they said they'd have to do...:jaded:
It truly is scary...there was one thread about how they've arrested 7200 in March in the rio grande vs 2300 in Feb I believe, since the news of amnesty is getting passed.
Study pegs cost of immigration bill’s mass legalization at $6.3 trillion
Does anyone here believe this number? Anyone?
Here's several reasons to disbelieve:
1- When costs rise, governments look to trim costs.
Suddenly, the cutoff for benefits is a lot lower. Unemployment benefits end sooner, food stamps don't go to as many, WIC has greater limits, health care reimbursement is slashed.
2- The cost today will likely explode due to inflation or just because most government projects are underbudgeted to begin with.
Let's take our time and drag our feet. Suddenly, a $6 trillion project is $12 trillion. Yay.
3- It's just a number.
I think I would have lost my eyes from excessive rolling if I had taken any more economics classes. Economist must have been human bobbleheads when Obama was talking about "jobs saved" or some sh!t like that. Costs foregone, opportunity costs, blah blah blah. If I don't buy a new car this year, did I earn an extra $20,000? If I don't give into my caffeine cravings and refuse to buy from the soda machine, did I create an extra dollar out of thin air today?
Soonerjeepman
5/6/2013, 01:51 PM
Badge, they can't even trim cost NOW...what makes ya think they'll lower the cutoffs for benefits? even if they do, adding 30 million people will cost the same or more...my guess more.
Does anyone here believe this number? Anyone?
Here's several reasons to disbelieve:
1- When costs rise, governments look to trim costs.
Suddenly, the cutoff for benefits is a lot lower. Unemployment benefits end sooner, food stamps don't go to as many, WIC has greater limits, health care reimbursement is slashed.
2- The cost today will likely explode due to inflation or just because most government projects are underbudgeted to begin with.
Let's take our time and drag our feet. Suddenly, a $6 trillion project is $12 trillion. Yay.
3- It's just a number.
I think I would have lost my eyes from excessive rolling if I had taken any more economics classes. Economist must have been human bobbleheads when Obama was talking about "jobs saved" or some sh!t like that. Costs foregone, opportunity costs, blah blah blah. If I don't buy a new car this year, did I earn an extra $20,000? If I don't give into my caffeine cravings and refuse to buy from the soda machine, did I create an extra dollar out of thin air today?
I assume they are using current dollars in the calculations.
Hey, our future entitlements are just a number (like 36 Trillion?)...but we owe it to ourselves so no big deal.
Hey, our future entitlements are just a number (like 36 Trillion?)...but we owe it to ourselves so no big deal.
I really wish that I could be confident enough in our government's future that I would expect to be paid in full for my Social Security and other benefits enjoyed by today's U.S. retirees. I'm not.
So yeah, the U.S. government does owe me and many others who plan to eventually retire trillions. But, when you think about it, they owe many debtors trillions and haven't paid any of them yet. So, what chance do I have?
Do I want the U.S. government to pay what it owes? Definitely. Would I love everyone in the world to have the same quality of life as I do in the U.S.? Sure. Would I mind if everyone in the world moved to the U.S.? Meh, why not.
I'll be honest: I'm so agreeable to everything that sounds good because I know that none of that will likely happen. And if it did, it would be under a best-case scenario, so that would be good for everyone, myself included.
I really wish that I could be confident enough in our government's future that I would expect to be paid in full for my Social Security and other benefits enjoyed by today's U.S. retirees. I'm not.
So yeah, the U.S. government does owe me and many others who plan to eventually retire trillions. But, when you think about it, they owe many debtors trillions and haven't paid any of them yet. So, what chance do I have?
Do I want the U.S. government to pay what it owes? Definitely. Would I love everyone in the world to have the same quality of life as I do in the U.S.? Sure. Would I mind if everyone in the world moved to the U.S.? Meh, why not.
I'll be honest: I'm so agreeable to everything that sounds good because I know that none of that will likely happen. And if it did, it would be under a best-case scenario, so that would be good for everyone, myself included.
7.5 billion people living in the US? That might be a little crowded.
Soonerjeepman
5/6/2013, 02:18 PM
my GF has her 130 acres..that's where I'll be
KantoSooner
5/6/2013, 02:28 PM
On the one hand, we have Fox reporting on a study done by the Heritage Foundation.
On the other, Marco Rubio and economists from the CBO and the WSJ saying that the Heritage numbers are based on fallacious assumptions.
I don't think I'll jump off the ledge just yet.
On the one hand, we have Fox reporting on a study done by the Heritage Foundation.
On the other, Marco Rubio and economists from the CBO and the WSJ saying that the Heritage numbers are based on fallacious assumptions.
I don't think I'll jump off the ledge just yet.
More astaounding to me than the $6.3 trillion was the 55,000,000 of potential "immigrants". The 30,000,000 was always a known quantity to me through family reunification...the additional 25,000,000 through guest worker programs wasn't.
KantoSooner
5/6/2013, 02:43 PM
Yep. Both numbers have the childlike quality of 'bazillion' to them.
We added 165,000 jobs last month. Even in a smoking economy, we'd add around 400,000. Assuming we have said smoking economy and that not one native born soul got a job, it'd take 11.5 years to hire all those economic migrants. Do you really believe that would happen? Follow up question: if 'yes' to the previous, what universe do you presently inhabit.
I'm smiling, so don't get mad, but those numbers simply don't pass any form of muster.
Soonerjeepman
5/6/2013, 02:44 PM
honestly I don't trust any of them...
Yep. Both numbers have the childlike quality of 'bazillion' to them.
We added 165,000 jobs last month. Even in a smoking economy, we'd add around 400,000. Assuming we have said smoking economy and that not one native born soul got a job, it'd take 11.5 years to hire all those economic migrants. Do you really believe that would happen? Follow up question: if 'yes' to the previous, what universe do you presently inhabit.
I'm smiling, so don't get mad, but those numbers simply don't pass any form of muster.
Don't blame me for the separate universe mentality....you obviously are unaware of all the jobs that are going to be created by granting citizenship to all our illegals and their families that the pro illegals have been touting.
The chain migration numbers certainly pass "muster". Currently 75% of all of our legal immigration are for family reunification and we are now granting citizenship to 1,000,000 per year. Grant citizenship and/or legal residency to 11,000,000 and you can do the math...even in this universe.
As I said I wasn't aware of the 25,000,000 for guest workers but with all of those new jobs created by massive immigration the sky is the limit.
TheHumanAlphabet
5/6/2013, 03:35 PM
Does anyone here believe this number? Anyone?
Yes, and I fear the real number will be far worse... This abomination needs to be defeated with a deafening roar from the people.
KantoSooner
5/6/2013, 03:45 PM
A) One major provision in the new bill is to shift the emphasis away from family reunification. How large a factor will it remain? I don't know. Anyone?
B) There is simply no way that legalizing 11 million people (who are already here, apparently in suspended animation if we expect changing their legal status to cause each one to suddenly start doing things very much different than what they're doing now) generates demand for 25 million guest workers. There is only so much lettuce to pick and roofs to shingle.
C) THA, those roaring people are the same ones who're seemingly overwhelmingly in favor of a 'go along to get along' solution?
A) One major provision in the new bill is to shift the emphasis away from family reunification. How large a factor will it remain? I don't know. Anyone?
B) There is simply no way that legalizing 11 million people (who are already here, apparently in suspended animation if we expect changing their legal status to cause each one to suddenly start doing things very much different than what they're doing now) generates demand for 25 million guest workers. There is only so much lettuce to pick and roofs to shingle.
C) THA, those roaring people are the same ones who're seemingly overwhelmingly in favor of a 'go along to get along' solution?
Evidently the new bill isn't shifting away from family reunification and that is why Sessions (see above article) is trying to amend it to restrict family reunification.
Haha...I never said legalizing 11,000,000 invaders created ANY NEW JOBS nor did I say we needed 25,000,000 new guest workers. That would be the big business and pro amnesty crowd per Sessions according to the bill.
KantoSooner
5/6/2013, 04:30 PM
So in essence Sessions has given over to the most infantile of straw man arguments in order to defeat the bill?
BTW, the shift in emphasis away from family being such a large factor is precisely why big business is supporting it. Grandma and cousin Rodrigo won't be keying in code alongside the Indian software engineers.
So in essence Sessions has given over to the most infantile of straw man arguments in order to defeat the bill?
BTW, the shift in emphasis away from family being such a large factor is precisely why big business is supporting it. Grandma and cousin Rodrigo won't be keying in code alongside the Indian software engineers.
Apparently Sessions is one of the few that have read the bill and is ready to eradicate horrible components of the bill...like family reunification. He also was thorough enough, unlike the bills proponents, to note the numerous waivers on enforcement given on border security to the judgement of homeland security...you know, the same people that aren't enforcing immigration laws now. Even Rubio has admitted the bill fails in that area and won't pass the house in its current form.
What universe are you in again? The US Chamber of Commerce has been fighting for illegal immigration for decades. Big business could care less about family reunification as it is no burden to them unlike the cheap labor infrastructure costs they will force upon the American taxpayers.
SanJoaquinSooner
5/6/2013, 07:48 PM
Heritage study is Bogus, Bogus, Bogus.
From Cato Institute:
May 4, 2013 7:05PM
Scoring Immigration Reform Correctly
By
Alex Nowrasteh
Share
Word is our pro-free-market brethren at the Heritage Foundation will release a new study on the fiscal impact of immigration reform in time for the congressional debate. It will be an update to a 2007 study that played a key role in derailing immigration reform then.
While the 2007 study was influential, it was fatally flawed, as I detail here. Hopefully Heritage’s updated version will correct for those criticisms and others, or else its analysis must be judged as lacking.
The key flaw in Heritage’s 2007 study is its use of static fiscal scoring, rather than dynamic fiscal scoring, to evaluate that year’s immigration reform bill. “Scoring” a bill means predicting its impact on the U.S. budget in the future by estimating how it will affect future spending and tax revenue. A statically scored prediction assumes the bill will not affect the rest of the economy – which is highly unrealistic.
A dynamically scored prediction, on the other hand, assumes that the bill will affect the rest of the economy, also changing tax revenue and government spending. Since increased immigration will increase the size of the economy, it will also increase tax revenue and some government spending. It’s important to factor those increases into any scoring model. Heritage’s 2007 study did not.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has adopted dynamic scoring for the coming immigration bill for reasons they explain here. The best justification for using dynamic scoring comes from Ed Feulner, who only recently stepped down as head of the Heritage Foundation and retains an emeritus title there. He writes:
Indeed, some lawmakers are fighting a proposal that would require them to take real-world considerations into account. They prefer to keep ‘scoring’ each bill-estimating how it will affect the economy and the amount of taxes they take in-with the ‘static’ model used by the store owner’s friend. If, say, a 5 percent tax on something brings in $50 million, they assume a 10 percent tax will fetch $100 million.
Not surprisingly, this approach has caused lawmakers to come up with some wildly inaccurate assumptions over the years.
Feulner goes on to explain how numerous tax cuts actually produced more revenue despite static models predicting the opposite.
Can you imagine any private business acting this way? Of course not. That’s why it’s time Congress switched to a method many business owners use-‘dynamic scoring’-which assumes that if you change the way you do business, customers will react in relatively predictable ways. Before they’ve hiked a price or changed a product, most companies have a pretty good idea of how many customers they’ll gain or lose.
Would ‘dynamic scoring’ always give lawmakers perfect estimates? No, but it surely would get much closer to the true cost than “static scoring” does. If doubts remain, put it to the test: Have Congress produce ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ scores of various pieces of legislation for a few years and see which prove more accurate.
Using dynamic scoring to predict the effects of legislation is as relevant for immigration reform as it is for tax cuts. Allowing more legal immigration, and legalizing those here, will increase the number of workers and entrepreneurs in the U.S., necessarily growing the size of the economy. Capital accumulation and land improvements then catch up to the population growth. Those effects boost GDP, ergo tax revenue.
A common retort to the above is that many new immigrants will be low-skilled and, because of our progressive tax system, will not pay much in taxes. Expanding the supply of laborers and entrepreneurs through immigration would increase profits, expand the production possibilities frontier, increase the return to capital, and raise incomes for most American workers who are complements. Thus, even if most future immigrants are low-skilled—and they likely will be—their positive effect on the economy would increase tax revenues indirectly.
Heritage’s former president supports dynamic scoring, and now so does the CBO, at least for immigration. For the sake of an honest debate, I sure hope Heritage’s upcoming report does too
Turd_Ferguson
5/6/2013, 07:55 PM
I'm always gonna disagree with anything that goes against letting the messicans cross the boarder freely, 24/7/365, because I love me some messicans.We get it Juan. Same ****, different thread.
Well the dynamic scoring has already occurred.
The 11,000,000 illegals are already here and the impact on our economy has already been felt....but the costs to the American taxpayers has not been felt when the illegals gain citizenship and access to government benefits like obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, SS, welfare, education, etc...benefits their low income will never account for in payment to the guv in taxes. Hell, most of them will never pay federal income taxes.
SanJoaquinSooner
5/6/2013, 08:47 PM
We get it Juan. Same ****, different thread.
No, its the same damned thread over and over that Okie posts three times a day.
No, its the same damned thread over and over that Okie posts three times a day.
Heh heh heh
Now juan, you have to admit its all over the news these days...different articles, different politicians, different viewpoints, different developments.
Why don't you want the public informed?
OU_Sooners75
5/6/2013, 09:06 PM
I think Juan is one of the 11,000,000 that is desperately seeking to be reunited with his family.
I think Juan is one of the 11,000,000 that is desperately seeking to be reunited with his family.
Theres more truth in that statement than you might know.....
i think an influx of post-boomer population is about what we need at this point
i think an influx of post-boomer population is about what we need at this point
Regardless of the consequences.
Idiocracy here we come...
who else is going to pay grandpa's medicare costs?
who else is going to pay grandpa's medicare costs?
It wont be Pedro.
without culling the herd from the top, your lower population utopia is going to be pretty ugly then
The top are the ones with the low population growth....they ain't the problem.
except they are going to bankrupt us as they leave the workforce
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/7/2013, 02:43 AM
i think an influx of post-boomer population is about what we need at this pointwhat's in it for you?
more people to pay for your palliative care
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/7/2013, 02:47 AM
except they are going to bankrupt us as they leave the workforce1) what does the government do now that isn't working towards that end? 2)how do you figure wealthy people are going to further bankrupt us when they leave the work force??
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/7/2013, 02:49 AM
more people to pay for your palliative caregood word. How do millions added to the entitlement and socialist voting rolls help pay chit?
except they are going to bankrupt us as they leave the workforce
They didn't bankrupt anyone...they paid their way.
Ponzi schemes always fail.
KantoSooner
5/7/2013, 08:53 AM
Okay, so we agree that 'pay as you go' is a terrible way to run/fund most anything. That wasn't the original poiint. The original point was that, somehow, the immigration bill was going to result in eleventy billion (55,000,000, I believe) people flood across the border in addition to legalizing the 11,000,000 already here illegally and that this would cost the US an additive $6.3 trillion over some period of time.
My point was that these are the kind of numbers that vacuous teevee news readers come up with. Like Brian Williams (NBC) announcing in his melodious voice that "...the Gulf of Mexico is filling up with oil..." during the Deepwater blow out. Filling up with oil. Damn, our energy woes are over and BP has kind of good geologists, I'm thinking.
Mexico's population is approximately 112 million. And, let's be honest, of the illegals here, the vast majority are Mexican. So, some 10 mill or around are already here. Another 55 mill are going to make the haul North? Really? 1/2 of the Mexican nation is going to up stakes and move to Lubbock? Ya think?
No, clearly, the Heritage numbers are terminally ****ed in the head.
$6.3 trill in additive costs? How is this number arrived at? Well, a casual reading would indicate that this number might be reached if each of the impossible 55 million of fresh immigrants AND each of the 11 already here took advantage of all currently available AND projected benefits over some undefined time frame into the future.
In other words, the dollar cost projection is, likewise, ****ed in the head.
This bill may be a bad idea. If so, it is incumbent upon the 'anti's' to put something better on the table. And make it workable, eh? Not some seventh grade absolutist nonsense. The world is a shades of grey kind of place. Live with it.
My personal take is that the status quo is untenable and that we are not going to toss 11 million across a line in the desert and that thus, we'll make some compromises. Get a start at it and fix it as we go. Doing nothing smacks of a three year old saying, "Wa, Wa, Wa, I can't hear you" with his fingers stuck in his ears.
What is not terribly excusable is to use numbers and rationale that don't even pass a crude reality check.
olevetonahill
5/7/2013, 08:58 AM
I've never been one to trust the Gov. in much of anything let alone how much something will eventually cost.
My question tho is what will the cost be if we dont do anything?
Kick em all back south?
IMHO its all simply conjecture depending on which side of the issue you are on.
SanJoaquinSooner
5/7/2013, 09:35 AM
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) pushed back today on a Heritage Foundation study that found a net fiscal cost of $6.3 trillion associated with S.744, the immigration reform bill pending in the United States Senate.
The primary flaw in this analysis is that it considers only costs and ignores benefits. But even the cost estimate itself is vastly overblown.
Among the study’s flaws:
1.This is a static fiscal score, not a dynamic analysis. Conservatives believe that policy changes should be evaluated in a way that takes both costs and benefits into account. Unfortunately, the authors of this study do not attempt to measure indirect fiscal effects, and their impact on GDP growth and federal revenues. After listing possible aspects of immigration reform that could be scored dynamically, the authors write, “Because figures are imprecise, none of the indirect fiscal effects discussed in this section is included in the fiscal analysis in this paper.” But measuring these economic effects is imperative to a thorough analysis of the bill. A Cato Institute analysis using a dynamic model to evaluate proposed changes similar to those in S.744 projected a net GDP increase of $1.5 trillion in the decade immediately after passage.
2.It lumps native-born Americans into the overall cost of immigration by calculating costs by household, rather than by individual. Many undocumented immigrants are married to U.S. citizens or have citizen children. To the extent that low-income American family members receive government benefits, they are treated as immigrant-related costs in this study — massively inflating the overall cost estimate. The study ignores that many Americans receiving public benefits would do so regardless of immigration.
3.America has entitlement, welfare, and education crises, not an immigration crisis. While the overall cost specific to immigration is inflated, the authors are correct to point out our spiraling entitlement and welfare costs must be addressed. Thankfully, Republicans in the House and Senate are committed to tackling this problem. It must be resolved regardless of immigration levels. Rather than conceding the growth of the welfare state, the authors should acknowledge that a growing workforce, supplemented with foreign workers, is imperative to economic growth while focusing on restricting the runaway growth of government.
ATR’s Josh Culling issued the following statement:
“The Heritage Foundation is a treasured ally in the conservative movement and a pillar of the conservative policy community. However, this study is every bit as flawed as its 2007 iteration.
“This static analysis takes into account none of the universally-accepted economic benefits of immigration, choosing only to focus on costs. But the costs estimates are unfairly inflated. The authors count overall household costs, which often includes benefits paid to native-born, low-income American spouses and children of immigrants. Those costs would exist regardless of the immigration status of one’s partner; this is an indictment of our current welfare state, not proposed immigration reforms.
“ATR has worked tirelessly to reform our unsustainable entitlements, and will continue to do so. We should not put a pro-growth reform of our broken immigration system on hold while we do so. In fact, America should welcome more legal immigrants to pay into the system without receiving benefits and boost the economy while we work toward sustainable reform.
“Lawmakers and the American public should rely on an accurate accounting of immigration reform’s costs and benefits. Unfortunately, this study inaccurately reflects only one side of the ledger. Even the establishment Congressional Budget Office, which Heritage, ATR, and others have excoriated for employing only static models, will take economic growth into account when it scores the bill. I had hoped the same of the conservative movement’s happy warrior for dynamic scoring, the Heritage Foundation.”
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cleller
5/7/2013, 09:58 AM
Speaking of the high cost of amnesty. Remember the old show "Alias Smith and Jones"?
Those guys had to bust their hump, and risk their lives trying to get amnesty. Pete Duel ended up committing suicide.
olevetonahill
5/7/2013, 10:05 AM
Wanta to Cure the Illegal thing?
Fine the Living hell out of any company hiring an undoc. worker.
Fix it so there Kids Born here are NOT auto Citizens and are sent back to messico with Parents.
Parents to Include any American scitizen who marries or breeds with an Illegal.
Permanent Black list for any kind of Visa for anyone Caught here illegally along with Black balling any future family member who wants to immigrate .
Either that or throw the ****ing borders open and say to hell with it.
Okay, so we agree that 'pay as you go' is a terrible way to run/fund most anything. That wasn't the original poiint. The original point was that, somehow, the immigration bill was going to result in eleventy billion (55,000,000, I believe) people flood across the border in addition to legalizing the 11,000,000 already here illegally and that this would cost the US an additive $6.3 trillion over some period of time.
My point was that these are the kind of numbers that vacuous teevee news readers come up with. Like Brian Williams (NBC) announcing in his melodious voice that "...the Gulf of Mexico is filling up with oil..." during the Deepwater blow out. Filling up with oil. Damn, our energy woes are over and BP has kind of good geologists, I'm thinking.
Mexico's population is approximately 112 million. And, let's be honest, of the illegals here, the vast majority are Mexican. So, some 10 mill or around are already here. Another 55 mill are going to make the haul North? Really? 1/2 of the Mexican nation is going to up stakes and move to Lubbock? Ya think?
No, clearly, the Heritage numbers are terminally ****ed in the head.
$6.3 trill in additive costs? How is this number arrived at? Well, a casual reading would indicate that this number might be reached if each of the impossible 55 million of fresh immigrants AND each of the 11 already here took advantage of all currently available AND projected benefits over some undefined time frame into the future.
In other words, the dollar cost projection is, likewise, ****ed in the head.
This bill may be a bad idea. If so, it is incumbent upon the 'anti's' to put something better on the table. And make it workable, eh? Not some seventh grade absolutist nonsense. The world is a shades of grey kind of place. Live with it.
My personal take is that the status quo is untenable and that we are not going to toss 11 million across a line in the desert and that thus, we'll make some compromises. Get a start at it and fix it as we go. Doing nothing smacks of a three year old saying, "Wa, Wa, Wa, I can't hear you" with his fingers stuck in his ears.
What is not terribly excusable is to use numbers and rationale that don't even pass a crude reality check.
You still smiling?
The vast majority of the illegals here are Hispanic and of those the vast majority are Mexican...no doubt about that. But there are also a number of Hispanics from Central and S America, too.
I doubt Mexico's population will still be 112,000,000 if we grant citizenship to 10% of their population. Nobody seems to be disputing the 11,000,000 figure, of course, that wouldn't include children that have been born in this country to illegals that are now citizens.
As I have said, the 30,000,000 is a real number through family reunification and it will happen. 11,000,000 illegals here having their husbands, wives, children, and parents join them is almost a certainty. So now we have reduced the population of Mexico to what?...80-85,000,000 or so? Sound like a good idea to take on about 20-25% of Mexico's population as citizens?
As I have also said I don't know about the guest worker program or the 25,000,000. Some of that was to be directed at the high skilled, highly educated potential immigrants from around the world. I assume we will eventually see the guest worker and family reunification components of the bill exposed as well as the Heritage Foundation's calculations for their numbers.
Virtually all of the 11,000,000 illegals here now are low income...any debate about that? Most won't pay any federal income (or probably even state) taxes. Their "reunified" families will be on the same level. They are also, BY FAR, the biggest overpopulaters in the country.
This bill is a bad idea. There is no "maybe" to it. It is the biggest sellout of America in the last century. And it is being done by big business, labor, evangelicals, churches, dems and pubs.
The status quo is a bad deal but it is a far better situation than granting citizenship to 11,000,000 or ultimately 30,000,000 through family reunification or expanding immigration beyond the 1,000,000 per year we are currently giving citizenship now. The "rationale" that somehow these low educated, unskilled laborers are not going to be a drain on the American taxpayers is once they receive access to government benefits is incredibly naive yet somehow that is being sold to the American public as a "valid" argument.
A better plan would be to implement REAL border security and everify now. Many illegals would self deport. But that's not the way the political winds are blowing so the status quo is the best I can hope for until the political pendulum swings the other way. This notion that we have to do "something" now... even if it is worse for America is the epitome of an infantile thought process.
Wanta to Cure the Illegal thing?
Fine the Living hell out of any company hiring an undoc. worker.
Fix it so there Kids Born here are NOT auto Citizens and are sent back to messico with Parents.
Parents to Include any American scitizen who marries or breeds with an Illegal.
Permanent Black list for any kind of Visa for anyone Caught here illegally along with Black balling any future family member who wants to immigrate .
Either that or throw the ****ing borders open and say to hell with it.
I'm with you vet...Juan is with you on the open borders.
SanJoaquinSooner
5/7/2013, 10:54 AM
"The Heritage Foundation document is a political document; it's not a very serious analysis," said former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour,
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) pushed back today on a Heritage Foundation study that found a net fiscal cost of $6.3 trillion associated with S.744, the immigration reform bill pending in the United States Senate.
The primary flaw in this analysis is that it considers only costs and ignores benefits. But even the cost estimate itself is vastly overblown.
Among the study’s flaws:
1.This is a static fiscal score, not a dynamic analysis. Conservatives believe that policy changes should be evaluated in a way that takes both costs and benefits into account. Unfortunately, the authors of this study do not attempt to measure indirect fiscal effects, and their impact on GDP growth and federal revenues. After listing possible aspects of immigration reform that could be scored dynamically, the authors write, “Because figures are imprecise, none of the indirect fiscal effects discussed in this section is included in the fiscal analysis in this paper.” But measuring these economic effects is imperative to a thorough analysis of the bill. A Cato Institute analysis using a dynamic model to evaluate proposed changes similar to those in S.744 projected a net GDP increase of $1.5 trillion in the decade immediately after passage.
2.It lumps native-born Americans into the overall cost of immigration by calculating costs by household, rather than by individual. Many undocumented immigrants are married to U.S. citizens or have citizen children. To the extent that low-income American family members receive government benefits, they are treated as immigrant-related costs in this study — massively inflating the overall cost estimate. The study ignores that many Americans receiving public benefits would do so regardless of immigration.
3.America has entitlement, welfare, and education crises, not an immigration crisis. While the overall cost specific to immigration is inflated, the authors are correct to point out our spiraling entitlement and welfare costs must be addressed. Thankfully, Republicans in the House and Senate are committed to tackling this problem. It must be resolved regardless of immigration levels. Rather than conceding the growth of the welfare state, the authors should acknowledge that a growing workforce, supplemented with foreign workers, is imperative to economic growth while focusing on restricting the runaway growth of government.
ATR’s Josh Culling issued the following statement:
“The Heritage Foundation is a treasured ally in the conservative movement and a pillar of the conservative policy community. However, this study is every bit as flawed as its 2007 iteration.
“This static analysis takes into account none of the universally-accepted economic benefits of immigration, choosing only to focus on costs. But the costs estimates are unfairly inflated. The authors count overall household costs, which often includes benefits paid to native-born, low-income American spouses and children of immigrants. Those costs would exist regardless of the immigration status of one’s partner; this is an indictment of our current welfare state, not proposed immigration reforms.
“ATR has worked tirelessly to reform our unsustainable entitlements, and will continue to do so. We should not put a pro-growth reform of our broken immigration system on hold while we do so. In fact, America should welcome more legal immigrants to pay into the system without receiving benefits and boost the economy while we work toward sustainable reform.
“Lawmakers and the American public should rely on an accurate accounting of immigration reform’s costs and benefits. Unfortunately, this study inaccurately reflects only one side of the ledger. Even the establishment Congressional Budget Office, which Heritage, ATR, and others have excoriated for employing only static models, will take economic growth into account when it scores the bill. I had hoped the same of the conservative movement’s happy warrior for dynamic scoring, the Heritage Foundation.”
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/GroverNorquist/Heritage-Immigration-Study-Flawed/2013/05/06/id/503068#ixzz2ScLjdWgZ
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So American Tax reform admits there is an entitlement problem (surprise, surprise) and Heritage was correct to address it...yet ATR is relying on Repubs in the house and senate to address the problem rather than incorporate any benefit elimination in the "reform" bill. How incredibly absurd. These "immigrants" are going to receive the dam benefits and ATR wants you to ignore that aspect of citizenship for the illegals?
SanJoaquinSooner
5/7/2013, 10:58 AM
UCLA professor Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, the author of The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform...
Hinojosa-Ojeda says that 11 million immigrants would be the equivalent to more than $1.5 trillion, or roughly 1 percent, added to the gross domestic product (GDP) in a period of 10 years The U.S.GDP, defined as the output of goods and services produced by labor and property, is approximately $15 trillion, according to the World Bank.
"That means a lot of good things for the economy. It means there is more money circulating in the economy. It means the economy is able to support a lot more jobs, so everybody wins," Hinojosa-Ojeda said. "One of the reasons we grow and we have GDP growth is because we have new workers. The economy can't grow if we don't add these workers."
In his research, Hinojosa-Ojeda studied three scenarios: the economic impact of a comprehensive immigration reform that would create a path to legalization, a temporary work program with no option to permanent legal status, and the deportation of undocumented immigrants.
He concluded that legalizing immigrants would be more beneficial to the economy by generating additional taxes, increasing consumption and allowing immigrants to climb the occupational ladder, among other things.
Expelling immigrants, on the other hand, would be more expensive, costing $2.6 trillion to the GDP over a period of 10 years, excluding the cost of deportation, the report states.
SanJoaquinSooner
5/7/2013, 11:05 AM
Grover Norquist (Americans for Tax Reform) says ...
People are an asset, not a liability. The United States is the most immigrant-friendly nation in the world and the richest country in the world. This is not a coincidence. Those voices that would make us less immigrant-friendly would make us less successful, less prosperous, and certainly less American.
Today, some 11 million "undocumented workers" live in the shadows in the United States. Sixty percent of them crossed the Mexican border or the Canadian border without government approval and 40% arrived by plane and overstayed their visas.
The 844-page immigration reform bill submitted to the Senate by the "Gang of Eight" senators would allow the 11 million to earn legal status by submitting to a background check to weed out those with felony convictions, paying taxes and a fine. They would then be Registered Provisional Immigrants (RPI), allowing them to work anywhere in the United States, denied means-tested federal welfare benefits for 10 years, and only after the 10 years become eligible for the 3-5 year process of becoming citizens.
This legislation would greatly strengthen the American economy. When a similar immigration reform measure passed in 1986, those immigrants granted legal status saw their incomes rise by 15% simply because they could move around, hold a driver's license, and interview for work without fear. Their legal status made more employers willing to hire them.
To understand the magnitude of this increase in productivity by millions of workers in the American economy, imagine if your sibling or child was told to go out and make the most of his or her talents with the imposed handicap that they not hold a legal driver's license, are forbidden to fly on commercial airlines for want of documentation, and could only work for individuals or firms that did not check for citizenship.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, recently published a dynamic analysis of how immigration reform might affect GDP and projected that such a reform would increase GDP growth by 0.9% each year. Over a decade, this would reduce the projected federal deficit by $2.7tn without raising taxes – largely through present taxation on more workers and rising incomes.
The Cato Institute commissioned a study by professor Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda of UCLA that projected $1.5tn in economic growth (pdf) in response to an immigration reform similar to the Senate plan, and conversely, should the United States take the advice of those who would deport all "illegal immigrants", GDP would fall $2.6tn over the decade.
One notes that immigrants or their children have founded more than 40% of all Fortune 500 companies in the United States, employing more than 10 million people worldwide. And the Kauffman Foundation, which studies entrepreneurship, found that in 2012 immigrants were twice as likely as native-born Americans to start a new business.
The traditional naysaying by opponents of both legal immigration and allowing earned legal status for those without papers today have been smacked down by studies by Heritage Foundation senior fellow Julian L Simon's Nine Myths About Immigration, and the Heritage Foundation's 2006 study by Tim Kane and Kirk Johnson that pronounced:
"Whether low-skilled or high-skilled, immigrants boost national output, enhance specialization, and provide a net economic benefit."
Right now, the Republican House of Representatives is at loggerheads with the Democrat-controlled Senate and the Obama White House over the question of tax hikes and/or spending restraint. There is one piece of legislation now before Congress that would dramatically reduce the deficit over the next decade. That bill has widespread and bipartisan support from Tea Party leaders like Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky) and Marco Rubio (Republican, Florida) as well as the US Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO labor federation, and the American Farm Bureau. That deficit-reducing legislation is S744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013.
UCLA professor Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, the author of The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform...
Hinojosa-Ojeda says that 11 million immigrants would be the equivalent to more than $1.5 trillion, or roughly 1 percent, added to the gross domestic product (GDP) in a period of 10 years The U.S.GDP, defined as the output of goods and services produced by labor and property, is approximately $15 trillion, according to the World Bank.
"That means a lot of good things for the economy. It means there is more money circulating in the economy. It means the economy is able to support a lot more jobs, so everybody wins," Hinojosa-Ojeda said. "One of the reasons we grow and we have GDP growth is because we have new workers. The economy can't grow if we don't add these workers."
In his research, Hinojosa-Ojeda studied three scenarios: the economic impact of a comprehensive immigration reform that would create a path to legalization, a temporary work program with no option to permanent legal status, and the deportation of undocumented immigrants.
He concluded that legalizing immigrants would be more beneficial to the economy by generating additional taxes, increasing consumption and allowing immigrants to climb the occupational ladder, among other things.
Expelling immigrants, on the other hand, would be more expensive, costing $2.6 trillion to the GDP over a period of 10 years, excluding the cost of deportation, the report states.
What a bunch of hogwash. The 11,000,000 are here now and are not receiving near the governmental benefits they would be entitled to with citizenship. The 11,000,000 are already working so why would GDP increase? There are many illegals (but certainly not all) that pay into SS now with no chance of receiving the benefit as they would if citizenship were conferred upon them.
Hell we can add all of Mexico and it will certainly increase our GDP but what about the costs to the current American Taxpayers?
KantoSooner
5/7/2013, 11:15 AM
Okay, Okie, you just stick with those numbers of yours and the assumption that (somewhere considerably north of) 25% of the Mexican nation will decamp to Los Estados Unidos. Insane assumptions but still, you're welcome to them. Criminy, you can't get 25% of a population, much less the more accurate 50% to do anything in unison. But why quibble? It's a pointless argument. Why? Because we can solve the whole thing in an easy, two step process:
1. Everify
2. Punish the crap out of any employer who hires without using Everify.
Perfect solution? No. But good enough to make it damn hard to get work illegally here. And I'm guessing that the vast bulk of illegals here aren't here because their vacation to Disney World was so much fun they just stayed and stayed. No jobs, no incentive to move here.
Now that we've solved that we can move on to discussing whether carrying a stoned gay man in a concealed holster will prevent Obammy from turning us all socialistic.
DeMint and Rector: Immigration Reform Worsens 'Redistribution'
Monday, 06 May 2013 10:19 PM
By Greg Richter
Saying the federal government is now in the business of redistribution, The Heritage Foundation's Jim DeMint and Robert Rector argue in a Washington Post op-ed Monday that the immigration reform bill before Congress will cost Americans in their pocketbooks or by raising the national debt.
"Unlawful immigrants have relatively low earning potential because, on average, they have 10th-grade educations and low skills," they say. Such heads of households receive, on average, four times more in government services and benefits than they pay in taxes.
Heritage released a study on Monday saying that the bill will cost $6.3 trillion.
Rather than forcing the "complicated, lengthy bill through Congress, the men suggested "piece-by-piece immigration solutions." They pressed for streamlining the legal immigration system, encouraging assimilation, and fulfillment of vows to secure borders and strengthen workplace enforcement.
Illegal immigrants already impose costs on police, hospitals, schools and other services, DeMint and Rector said. "Putting them on a path to citizenship means that within a few years, they will qualify for the full panoply of government programs: more than 80 means-tested welfare programs, as well as Social Security, Medicare and Obamacare."
An efficient, merit-based system, they say, would boost the economy and lessen the burden on taxpayers.
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/demint-rector-immigration-reform/2013/05/06/id/503087#ixzz2SclL4hgX
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KantoSooner
5/7/2013, 11:18 AM
And, yeah, I am still smiling. I enjoy this stuff. Just wish I had a beer.
olevetonahill
5/7/2013, 11:19 AM
Okay, Okie, you just stick with those numbers of yours and the assumption that (somewhere considerably north of) 25% of the Mexican nation will decamp to Los Estados Unidos. Insane assumptions but still, you're welcome to them. Criminy, you can't get 25% of a population, much less the more accurate 50% to do anything in unison. But why quibble? It's a pointless argument. Why? Because we can solve the whole thing in an easy, two step process:
1. Everify
2. Punish the crap out of any employer who hires without using Everify.
Perfect solution? No. But good enough to make it damn hard to get work illegally here. And I'm guessing that the vast bulk of illegals here aren't here because their vacation to Disney World was so much fun they just stayed and stayed. No jobs, no incentive to move here.
Now that we've solved that we can move on to discussing whether carrying a stoned gay man in a concealed holster will prevent Obammy from turning us all socialistic.
I likeMY plan better:welcoming:
KantoSooner
5/7/2013, 11:21 AM
An efficient, merit-based system, they say, would boost the economy and lessen the burden on taxpayers.
So...DeMint and Rector are in favor of immigration, just not these immigrants and not under any set of rules now proposed or in force. Perhaps they'd be so good as to put their 'efficient, merit-based system' down on paper so it, too, could be debated.
Seems logical, no?
KantoSooner
5/7/2013, 11:22 AM
I likeMY plan better:welcoming:
Of course you do.
Okay, Okie, you just stick with those numbers of yours and the assumption that (somewhere considerably north of) 25% of the Mexican nation will decamp to Los Estados Unidos. Insane assumptions but still, you're welcome to them. Criminy, you can't get 25% of a population, much less the more accurate 50% to do anything in unison. But why quibble? It's a pointless argument. Why? Because we can solve the whole thing in an easy, two step process:
1. Everify
2. Punish the crap out of any employer who hires without using Everify.
Perfect solution? No. But good enough to make it damn hard to get work illegally here. And I'm guessing that the vast bulk of illegals here aren't here because their vacation to Disney World was so much fun they just stayed and stayed. No jobs, no incentive to move here.
Now that we've solved that we can move on to discussing whether carrying a stoned gay man in a concealed holster will prevent Obammy from turning us all socialistic.
Insane numbers? Hell we already have 10% of their population now and you think that adding 15% over the next 10-15 years is a stretch? In 1986 we gave 3,000,000 amnesty...you know, the amnesty that was to end all amnesties and now we are offering it to almost 4 times that number 25 years later.
I agree with the everify and punishing the crap out of employers (something our current president has fought against). You are still going to have to have border security. I also agree that most will self deport but that isn't what is being offered in this bill.
But I'm happy to now consider the stoned gay man in a concealed holster vs Obama socialism.
olevetonahill
5/7/2013, 11:25 AM
Of course you do.
:chuncky:
An efficient, merit-based system, they say, would boost the economy and lessen the burden on taxpayers.
So...DeMint and Rector are in favor of immigration, just not these immigrants and not under any set of rules now proposed or in force. Perhaps they'd be so good as to put their 'efficient, merit-based system' down on paper so it, too, could be debated.
Seems logical, no?
I'd go with that. Legal immigration should be bringing us culturally diverse, educated and/or highly skilled people...but that is not what amnesty is doing. We are granting citizenship to 1,000,000 per year...what is enough?
TheHumanAlphabet
5/7/2013, 12:28 PM
C) THA, those roaring people are the same ones who're seemingly overwhelmingly in favor of a 'go along to get along' solution?
Yeah, weak a$$ turds that know nothing of about what it will mean when they lose control of the country, all becuase they don't want to mow their lawn, pay the going rate at restaurants that is not subsidized by "indentured" employees or eat food that does not reflect the true cost of bringing it to the market...
Kanto - no "sacrificies"...we did that in 1986, that was going to be the only really only ever amnesty for all the illegals. We pass this, we may as well open the doors like France and let anyone in...Just hand out citizenship cards when you cross the border...
KantoSooner
5/7/2013, 01:23 PM
France has very tough residence requirements. They just felt, like Britain, for that matter, that people who came from their old colonies should get an easier deal.
We have two options here:
We can hold to an absolutist course which will result in the status quo continuing on into the indefintie future. Probably liveable, surely not perfect, probably not even the best we can do.
Or
We can try for some sort of resolution that moves us toward a more desireable future. The illegals are here, well, illegally. There are lots of 'em. Laws either have to be enforced in some meaningful way or scrapped. So we shouldn't amnesty everybody. And that's not what this bill does, by the way. On the other hand bodily ejecting millions of people who have significant family, social etc, etc ties is neither right nor is it going to happen. So what we will ultimately get, if we can tamp down the temper tantrums, is some middle course.
It's running about 50:50 right now, so the smart money has to go with option one, 'do nothing'. It's too bad, really, but that's where we are as a nation.
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/7/2013, 01:33 PM
You still smiling?
The vast majority of the illegals here are Hispanic and of those the vast majority are Mexican...no doubt about that. But there are also a number of Hispanics from Central and S America, too.
I doubt Mexico's population will still be 112,000,000 if we grant citizenship to 10% of their population. Nobody seems to be disputing the 11,000,000 figure, of course, that wouldn't include children that have been born in this country to illegals that are now citizens.
As I have said, the 30,000,000 is a real number through family reunification and it will happen. 11,000,000 illegals here having their husbands, wives, children, and parents join them is almost a certainty. So now we have reduced the population of Mexico to what?...80-85,000,000 or so? Sound like a good idea to take on about 20-25% of Mexico's population as citizens?
As I have also said I don't know about the guest worker program or the 25,000,000. Some of that was to be directed at the high skilled, highly educated potential immigrants from around the world. I assume we will eventually see the guest worker and family reunification components of the bill exposed as well as the Heritage Foundation's calculations for their numbers.
Virtually all of the 11,000,000 illegals here now are low income...any debate about that? Most won't pay any federal income (or probably even state) taxes. Their "reunified" families will be on the same level. They are also, BY FAR, the biggest overpopulaters in the country.
This bill is a bad idea. There is no "maybe" to it. It is the biggest sellout of America in the last century. And it is being done by big business, labor, evangelicals, churches, dems and pubs.
The status quo is a bad deal but it is a far better situation than granting citizenship to 11,000,000 or ultimately 30,000,000 through family reunification or expanding immigration beyond the 1,000,000 per year we are currently giving citizenship now. The "rationale" that somehow these low educated, unskilled laborers are not going to be a drain on the American taxpayers is once they receive access to government benefits is incredibly naive yet somehow that is being sold to the American public as a "valid" argument.
A better plan would be to implement REAL border security and everify now. Many illegals would self deport. But that's not the way the political winds are blowing so the status quo is the best I can hope for until the political pendulum swings the other way. This notion that we have to do "something" now... even if it is worse for America is the epitome of an infantile thought process.Good post. That's how the situmation looks right now.
OU_Sooners75
5/7/2013, 04:17 PM
An efficient, merit-based system, they say, would boost the economy and lessen the burden on taxpayers.
So...DeMint and Rector are in favor of immigration, just not these immigrants and not under any set of rules now proposed or in force. Perhaps they'd be so good as to put their 'efficient, merit-based system' down on paper so it, too, could be debated.
Seems logical, no?
So you trust that 11,000,000 people that came here illegally (or by breaking our nation's laws) will show some type of merit in the process?
The ****ers already showed up ILLEGALLY.
Make them pay a fine and then work just like my Grandmother had to to gain citizenship to this nation!
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/7/2013, 04:25 PM
So you trust that 11,000,000 people that came here illegally (or by breaking our nation's laws) will show some type of merit in the process?
The ****ers already showed up ILLEGALLY.
Make them pay a fine and then work just like my Grandmother had to to gain citizenship to this nation!What, and lose democrat votes/voters? Cold day in Hell, compadre!
KantoSooner
5/8/2013, 09:03 AM
DeMint and Rector are apparently declaring their support for some plan that is characterized as 'efficient' and 'merit based'. Well, our current program obviously doesn't work. We've got a whole lot of illegals here working all over the place. So, the current plan is no good. Therefore, we need something different. DeMint and Rector don't like what the 'Gang of Eight' put on the table. Fine. No more vacuous words, put a plan on the table.
And, if they want to be taken seriously, that plan needs to include more than making like the Nazi's and starting to load the boxcars and placing twice our current military on the border. Real cost effective solutions that take into account the best in American values are called for.
Heh heh...back to the Nazis for deporting illegals. And "our American values" would suggest what?...that we don't deport people?
Really going with the hyperbole for someone that didn't like numbers that you felt were excessive. Twice our military on the border?
As of 31 January 2013, 1,429,995 people were on active duty in the armed forces,[2] with an additional 850,880 people in the seven reserve components.
We currently have about 20,000 border patrol agents.
There were 20,745 border patrol agents as of April 9, 2011; 17,659 of them stationed along the southwest border with Mexico, according to data provided by Steven Cribby, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.
I'm just guessing that you really support amnesty and the gang of eight's bill so that we can embrace our "American values".
KantoSooner
5/8/2013, 09:41 AM
Okie,
Not especially. What I would support would be treating the current 11 million as what they are: criminals but not particularly terrible ones. Line jumpers. And they're going to need penalties for that. I'd also treat as what they are in their day-to-day lives: pretty normal people who have American families, and kids and social ties and have, at least in part, been living among us for long periods of time. The American values part is recognizing the last bit and somehow balancing that with an urge to punish.
I'd then try to dry up the well of jobs (which in my opinion is what's driving most to cross illegally) through use of everify and a rational guest worker program that would permit casual temporary labor.
That's really about it. Getting hung up on border security is a red herring so far as immigration is concerned. If there aren't jobs here for them, the migrants won't come. If you earn ten times as much here as back home, no number of troops on the border is going to stop them from coming.
And, regarding hyperbole, what else would you call an attempt to round up 11,000,000 mostly peaceful people if not smacking of totalitarian measures?
TheHumanAlphabet
5/8/2013, 09:50 AM
Kanto as long as the line jumpers have a hefty penalty in time and money, then your ideas are mostly okay with me. We do need to dry up the employers hiring these people. I am just sick about the false economy we live in.
There's more to border security than just stemming the flow of illegals...like drug cartels.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/the_drug_cartels_keep_arizonas_border_wide_open.ht ml
We have agreed that strong enforcement of banning the hiring of illegals was imperative. Everify and severe punishment for employers that knowingly hire illegals will do much to curb the flow of illegals. If everify and severe punishment were in place right now I am sure many illegals would self deport...but, again, that is not where the political winds are blowing. I do think it is a shame that an employer even needs to worry about whether the person he is hiring is an American Citizen.
I view these illegals as squatters and I would have no problem calling the police or sheriff out to remove people illegally on my property. Putting 11,000,000 people in boxcars would be like cadillac transportation for most of them compared to the transportation they used to get here.
KantoSooner
5/8/2013, 10:47 AM
You're right on that. But I really do think we owe it to ourselves to not drop to 'their' level. We're Americans. We have the best country on earth and the most revolutionary society in human history. We need to strive every day to push ourselves to live up to that legacy and that dream.
Pulpet moment over.
We need to treat them better than they deserve. Maybe not a lot better, but better. Again: we owe it to ourselves as much as 'owing' it to them.
KantoSooner
5/8/2013, 10:48 AM
And yes on the drug cartels. If we could stop spending any time/money on policing immigration and (throw in) pot, just think how much time and resource we'd have to devote to real shiiteheads.
I'm not sure what you mean be stooping to their level...
I don't think enforcing our laws is being inhumane or unnecessarily harsh...The illegals all knew before they came here that getting caught would subject them to deportation.
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/8/2013, 12:20 PM
It's over. Just a matter of when the feces will actually be thrown.
You may be right Rush but I'll try to stay optimistic until the end...if it does go through I'm hoping for a lot of conservative backlash against those pubs that sold out.
KantoSooner
5/8/2013, 12:31 PM
Okie, here's one circumstance.
Let's say you were in prison in South Carolina for a felony. Not a terrible thing, not violent, but a felony nonetheless. One day, you're put on a chain gang. In a moment of impulse, you take your chance, run and you beat the odds, you make it to freedom. You ride freights (this was years ago) and hitch hike, make it to California and spend the next 50 years of your life building a career, raising a family, hell, you even serve your country during wartime under your assumed name. Finally you decide to make a clean breast of it, contact the governor's office and tell them the story.
What does the governor do?
In this case, he issues a pardon.
Right thing? Up to you.
The felon involved?
Robert Mitchum - actor and fugitive from justice most of his adult life.
My point in rendering this little tale is to encourage a little leniency and mercy. In my world, there'd be penalties for the illegals, but we don't need scorched earth here.
Kanto-funny you mentioned Mitchum because I was just reading about him the other day...Thunder Road was a natural fit for him.
Would "scorched earth" be denying the current illegals jobs and benefits?
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/8/2013, 12:45 PM
You may be right Rush but I'll try to stay optimistic until the end...if it does go through I'm hoping for a lot of conservative backlash against those pubs that sold out.If the democrats gain millions of new voters with the legalization of the illegals, as expected, socialism and socialistic beliefs become more entrenched, and the economy continues to fall apart.
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/8/2013, 12:47 PM
Kanto-funny you mentioned Mitchum because I was just reading about him the other day...Thunder Road was a natural fit for him.
Would "scorched earth" be denying the current illegals jobs and benefits?and/or not letting them vote.
Definitely don't want them voting since about 70% will go for dems.
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/8/2013, 02:12 PM
Definitely don't want them voting since about 70% will go for dems.Amnesty is TOTALLY about that subject. But, further destruction of the economy is a side benefit for the administration, and that issue alone makes it worthwhile for them.
KantoSooner
5/8/2013, 02:57 PM
Kanto-funny you mentioned Mitchum because I was just reading about him the other day...Thunder Road was a natural fit for him.
Would "scorched earth" be denying the current illegals jobs and benefits?
I think you're going to have to go with some sort of process that penalizes and sets standards that have to be passed along with a long-ish waiting period at the very least. During that time, if they opt to stay in the US and they aren't violent criminals or anything like that, then we're going to have to set up some way for them to work (and pay taxes). Benefits are more of a mixed bag. I'd think schools for the kids = yes. SS for some guy who just came across five years ago = no. Subsidized immunizations and flu shots = yes. Welfare = no. and so forth. I don't think we can do a clean cut approach. There's going to be judgment calls and the like. The numbers are too large and people are too erratic for it to work out, otherwise.
So, yes and no.
KantoSooner
5/8/2013, 02:58 PM
and/or not letting them vote.
no votes until citizenship. I didn't vote in numerous Japanese, Nigerian and Malaysian elections. Didn't hurt my feelings one little bit.
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/8/2013, 03:19 PM
no votes until citizenship. I didn't vote in numerous Japanese, Nigerian and Malaysian elections. Didn't hurt my feelings one little bit.no citizenship. Legal residency okay I suppose, but not citizenship
KantoSooner
5/8/2013, 03:40 PM
We could probably compromise on that. I'd still want to fix the immigration policy going forward and make sure it's hard for illegals to get jobs and do the rest of the fix. But if the 11 mill here already had to live in limbo...legal, but not citizens? I could live with that.
I's still want a penalty, back taxes (if any - one irony is that many have been having taxes deducted with no hope of ever seeing anything for that), background checks and so forth.
And permanent residency is not an anchor to bring anyone else into the country.
yep, that'd probably work.
TheHumanAlphabet
5/8/2013, 03:41 PM
no citizenship. Legal residency okay I suppose, but not citizenship
I would be for this. However, the Dims would not agree to this. I am liking Cruz more and more...He actually knows what it is about.
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/8/2013, 03:57 PM
We could probably compromise on that. I'd still want to fix the immigration policy going forward and make sure it's hard for illegals to get jobs and do the rest of the fix. But if the 11 mill here already had to live in limbo...legal, but not citizens? I could live with that.
I's still want a penalty, back taxes (if any - one irony is that many have been having taxes deducted with no hope of ever seeing anything for that), background checks and so forth.
And permanent residency is not an anchor to bring anyone else into the country.
yep, that'd probably work.bully
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/8/2013, 03:58 PM
I would be for this. However, the Dims would not agree to this. I am liking Cruz more and more...He actually knows what it is about.Cruz is a good man. But... it might be all but over, I'm afraid.
rock on sooner
5/8/2013, 04:24 PM
I would be for this. However, the Dims would not agree to this. I am liking Cruz more and more...He actually knows what it is about.
Ima Dem and a LOT of what Kanto & RLIMC (hard to believe, I know)
I agree with...Okie, too. Biggest issue I have is the bomb throwing
that Cruz is doing. I know he's on a mission to be up there with Rubio
and Paul. Paul and Cruz are less likely to try to find common ground
so I'm gonna wait and see a little more about Cruz, especially.
I'm going to wait on more info on Cruz, too. I don't like him inferring Hagel took bribes (or so I heard that's what he did) but I do like some of his positions ( like illegal immigration).
olevetonahill
5/8/2013, 07:49 PM
Ok heres another solution see if Yall like this one better. Have em all show up at one place and get their Green cards, after they all show up in this place . turn the Gas on.oh wait
Really Like Kanto said
Fine the hell out of the folks Hiring them. Make it hurt.
Id go one step further tho and save that 78 BILLION a year that Food stamps are costing us and Make the ones able to work MIGRATE to where those jobs are.
rock on sooner
5/8/2013, 08:25 PM
Ok heres another solution see if Yall like this one better. Have em all show up at one place and get their Green cards, after they all show up in this place . turn the Gas on.oh wait
Really Like Kanto said
Fine the hell out of the folks Hiring them. Make it hurt.
Id go one step further tho and save that 78 BILLION a year that Food stamps are costing us and Make the ones able to work MIGRATE to where those jobs are.
Vet, aint a bad idea but howya gonna make it happen? Seems ta me
that ya need to know who they are and all of em, too. Ya prolly need
to hang an ID on each of them that has an RFID chip and input em into
a tracking system, then have 80 billion ICE troopers take each one by
hand and walk em ta where they should be.
olevetonahill
5/8/2013, 08:35 PM
Vet, aint a bad idea but howya gonna make it happen? Seems ta me
that ya need to know who they are and all of em, too. Ya prolly need
to hang an ID on each of them that has an RFID chip and input em into
a tracking system, then have 80 billion ICE troopers take each one by
hand and walk em ta where they should be.
Naw. Cut off their FREE food and they will go where the work is.
rock on sooner
5/8/2013, 08:41 PM
Naw. Cut off their FREE food and they will go where the work is.
Now, member ima Dem, but ya caint do that and get by all the
Bible thumpers, ACLU'ers, crossover Pubs an mainstream Dems
whose voices would go all the way to the SCOTUS! Personally,
I'm fer hepping as many as possible find ways to git work and
keep same while hepping them git by until they do. Jus sayin...
Ok heres another solution see if Yall like this one better. Have em all show up at one place and get their Green cards, after they all show up in this place . turn the Gas on.oh wait
Really Like Kanto said
Fine the hell out of the folks Hiring them. Make it hurt.
Id go one step further tho and save that 78 BILLION a year that Food stamps are costing us and Make the ones able to work MIGRATE to where those jobs are.
looking at the numbers, it's not the welfare/food stampers that are costing us that much money. i think corporate creative off-shore money tricks cost us more than that in lost taxes. then there is medicare that is about to explode.
what is so wrong with allowing amnestied illegals to work on the books?
it's not the welfare queens and illegals that took the economy to ****.
OU_Sooners75
5/8/2013, 09:20 PM
Any person in this nation that breaks the law, usually has to face jail time, a hefty fine, or both.
That being said, the ILLEGAL immigrant that are currently in this country should be given a fine to pay before receiving any other help from our government, even in amnesty.
SanJoaquinSooner
5/8/2013, 09:40 PM
Any person in this nation that breaks the law, usually has to face jail time, a hefty fine, or both.
That being said, the ILLEGAL immigrant that are currently in this country should be given a fine to pay before receiving any other help from our government, even in amnesty.
Well, maybe jail time for a criminal conviction, but deportation hearings are in civil court. It's more like parking in the red zone than it is selling cocaine.
THe fine mess of 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S. can be blamed on two groups: (1) The liberal union wing that is opposed to guest worker visas, as they are afraid it will undercut their bloated salaries for "work." (2) The "enforcement only" crowd who doesn't understand how powerful the law of supply and demand actually is. They learned nothing from prohibition.
If a rational guest worker program had been established, along with Reagan's RICA bill, there would have been no need to cross the border illegally. Worker visas would have accommodated most of them when the economy was humming and at full employment for most of the years from 1983 to 2007.
OU_Sooners75
5/8/2013, 09:42 PM
Well, maybe jail time for a criminal conviction, but deportation hearings are in civil court. It's more like parking in the red zone than it is selling cocaine.
THe fine mess of 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S. can be blamed on two groups: (1) The liberal union wing that is opposed to guest worker visas, as they are afraid it will undercut their bloated salaries for "work." (2) The "enforcement only" crowd who doesn't understand how powerful the law of supply and demand actually is. They learned nothing from prohibition.
If a rational guest worker program had been established, along with Reagan's RICA bill, there would have been no need to cross the border illegally. Worker visas would have accommodated most of them when the economy was humming and at full employment for most of the years from 1983 to 2007.
Yeah, you can stop acting as if all of those here illegally have come here for the sole purpose of work.
Turd_Ferguson
5/8/2013, 09:48 PM
Well, maybe jail time for a criminal conviction, but deportation hearings are in civil court. It's more like parking in the red zone than it is selling cocaine.
THe fine mess of 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S. can be blamed on two groups: (1) The liberal union wing that is opposed to guest worker visas, as they are afraid it will undercut their bloated salaries for "work." (2) The "enforcement only" crowd who doesn't understand how powerful the law of supply and demand actually is. They learned nothing from prohibition.
If a rational guest worker program had been established, along with Reagan's RICA bill, there would have been no need to cross the border illegally. Worker visas would have accommodated most of them when the economy was humming and at full employment for most of the years from 1983 to 2007.
Blame? How bout the filthy ****er's crossing the boarder illegally, Juan? Why don't you blame their ***?
SanJoaquinSooner
5/9/2013, 12:29 AM
Blame? How bout the filthy ****er's crossing the boarder illegally, Juan? Why don't you blame their ***?
well my position is that if they are coming to work, and someone wants to employ them, then it shouldn't be illegal. Just like alcohol shouldn't have been illegal during prohibition. The rightful people to blame are those who constructed and/or maintained prohibition.
If someone wants to work and someone wants to hire them, then gov't should not deny it. It's the only way to get rid of the welfare state. No welfare and pro-work. Quit pissing on people who want to work.
well my position is that if they are coming to work, and someone wants to employ them, then it shouldn't be illegal. Just like alcohol shouldn't have been illegal during prohibition. The rightful people to blame are those who constructed and/or maintained prohibition.
If someone wants to work and someone wants to hire them, then gov't should not deny it. It's the only way to get rid of the welfare state. No welfare and pro-work. Quit pissing on people who want to work.
i'd like to see someone refute this without basically complaining that they don't like people speaking Spanish
well my position is that if they are coming to work, and someone wants to employ them, then it shouldn't be illegal. Just like alcohol shouldn't have been illegal during prohibition. The rightful people to blame are those who constructed and/or maintained prohibition.
If someone wants to work and someone wants to hire them, then gov't should not deny it. It's the only way to get rid of the welfare state. No welfare and pro-work. Quit pissing on people who want to work.
But it is illegal and the illegals know it. And nobody is amending the current bill to get rid of the welfare state so all the illegals will be entitled to the benefits once they are citizens. The bill would never pass and not a dem would vote for removing welfare in exchange for immigration reform.
And who is going to pay the medical costs for the illegals? Just deny them any access to hospital ER's while they are illegals and to Obamacare once they are citizens? Or mandate that companies that hire foreign workers be responsible for all of their costs so that none of those costs are absorbed by the taxpayers?
i'd like to see someone refute this without basically complaining that they don't like people speaking Spanish
See above.
olevetonahill
5/9/2013, 10:56 AM
But it is illegal and the illegals know it. And nobody is amending the current bill to get rid of the welfare state so all the illegals will be entitled to the benefits once they are citizens. The bill would never pass and not a dem would vote for removing welfare in exchange for immigration reform.
And who is going to pay the medical costs for the illegals? Just deny them any access to hospital ER's while they are illegals and to Obamacare once they are citizens? Or mandate that companies that hire foreign workers be responsible for all of their costs so that none of those costs are absorbed by the taxpayers?
Okie, They dont HAVE to be citizens to get welfare, hell they dont even have to be here Legally. Just ask obammy's aunt
Okie, They dont HAVE to be citizens to get welfare, hell they dont even have to be here Legally. Just ask obammy's aunt
Yep, in some cases that is true and their children will certainly be entitled to education and healthcare whether they are born here or not.
olevetonahill
5/9/2013, 10:59 AM
I know I spout off But Im usually just stirrin the pot
My real feelings are some where between what jaun wants and The rest of Yaqll
I dont GAS if they come to WORK its the fact that some come to stay and Leech off the Gov. that bothers me.
Personally I say get every able bodied arsehole OFF the Public dole, and Make them do the jobs. then if there is still a need let the Migrants in.
Since I'm against population growth for the US or the world illegal immigration doesn't work for me. Legal immigration that incorporates a balance between highly educated and/or highly skilled immigrants is okay with me particularly if it represents a broad cross section of a variety of a number of coutries. This 11,000,000 that are poorly educated, low skilled, low income earners that virually all are from south of the border is insanity. Even with legal immigration I don't want it to push up our overall population. We are struggling as it is now to have our natural resources like oil, gas, and water keep up with our population demands.
The companies that employ illegals naturally love the arrangement. They pay low wages and the taxpayers pick up the bill for everything else.
frankly, i'd rather hire ditch diggers from Mexico than give more high-end jobs to Indians or Chinese people that come from countries that actually value education.
NOt me...particularly if they are going to work in the US and have high wage jobs that are not a burden to the taxpayers.
olevetonahill
5/9/2013, 11:30 AM
NOt me...particularly if they are going to work in the US and have high wage jobs that are not a burden to the taxpayers.
Im ok with it as long as its NOT direct competition with Natural born Citizens for those High tech jobs.
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/9/2013, 11:47 AM
a country unwilling(as in our case) or unable to protect its borders from illegal invasion, is headed down the crapper.
Im ok with it as long as its NOT direct competition with Natural born Citizens for those High tech jobs.
Yep, I don't want any citizens being displaced by outside workers all things being equal.
rock on sooner
5/9/2013, 12:11 PM
There are just under 18000 border patrol agents along the Mexican/US
border. There are roughly 700 miles of fence (1969 miles long border).
We have electronic surveillance and drones plus occasional AWACS flyovers.
Short of doing what Wilson did when Pancho Villa was raiding the Southwest,
what more do we do to secure the borders? A platoon every 100 yards?
Not cracking wise here, serious question...what more do we do?
olevetonahill
5/9/2013, 12:15 PM
There are just under 18000 border patrol agents along the Mexican/US
border. There are roughly 700 miles of fence (1969 miles long border).
We have electronic surveillance and drones plus occasional AWACS flyovers.
Short of doing what Wilson did when Pancho Villa was raiding the Southwest,
what more do we do to secure the borders? A platoon every 100 yards?
Not cracking wise here, serious question...what more do we do?
Put Sic em in charge. he will take care of it.
There are just under 18000 border patrol agents along the Mexican/US
border. There are roughly 700 miles of fence (1969 miles long border).
We have electronic surveillance and drones plus occasional AWACS flyovers.
Short of doing what Wilson did when Pancho Villa was raiding the Southwest,
what more do we do to secure the borders? A platoon every 100 yards?
Not cracking wise here, serious question...what more do we do?
Make sure the surveillance is 100% on the border. We also have blimps that can be employed at very low cost.
I still have no problem with troops being deployed on the border, too. My son's unit from Ft Bliss in El Paso twice did border patrols and we have plenty of military personnel to fill in any holes not covered by ICE.
Of course it is all meaningless if we are going to turn them loose like we are doing now.
rock on sooner
5/9/2013, 12:40 PM
As I understand it, we are roughly neutral in illegal immigrant
growth, that is, deportation is about equal to what's getting
in. When we do catch them, the release is back to Mexico.
They turn around and come right back. The Mexican gov't
has its hands full with the drug cartels so there isn't much
help there. Points made earlier about nailing to the wall the
CEO's of companies that hire the illegals would probably be
the most effective method, BUT the business lobby keeps
delaying that. E-verify, tighter visa monitoring (RFID chips
embedded in the actual document to keep track) ICE agent
numbers increased to monitor visas, streamline the process
to repatriate the offenders would help...
Everify will defnitely help although it is a shame they aren't doing it now with our 11,000,000 illegals.
The neutral growth of illegals is largely due to our stagnant economy although in the last few months border crossings have evidently tripled due to the impending legislation.
KantoSooner
5/9/2013, 01:04 PM
Juan, I'm not for open borders, if you want to go work in someone else's country, you need to ask first and follow the rules while you're there. That's pretty straightforward and non-contorversial, I'd think. I would make those rules as easy to follow as possible and give people asking for permission a yes/no answer in a reasonable time (and here 'reasonable' is defined as less than 30 days).
Everify will not be perfect, but it doesn't need to be. For employers, just a simple check is all that's required. No more than a couple of minutes per person. No biggie. If the system slips and lets a guy get through, we'll live with it. The company did their deal and we're not going to require every roofing contractor to play Dick Tracy.
The numbers prevented from getting work will go a long, long way to stemming the flow of illegals.
Benefits are another deal. I'm a kid supporter, so I'm loath to kickiing kids out of school, denying them inoculation, keeping them off of WIC food programs and the like. Their parents, though really shouldn't get much if anything at all.
When I lived in foriegn countries (legally) they had a variety of approaches. I liked Malaysia's pretty much the best. School? Yes. Innoculations? Hell, Yes - enlightened self interest. Food? Kind of: the truly hungry were directed to Mosques who had soup kitchen type deals. Other than that, the message was, get your happy *** home. (They had an illegal Indonesian problem every bit as large, in percentage terms, as our Mexican one.)
Mexico is going nowhere. People are going to cross the border back and forth forever. And should. We need to put in place a system that makes that possible without simply offering a free lunch to whoever has the wherewithal to wander on over here.
Senate Panel Rejects Major Challenge to Immigration Bill
Thursday, 09 May 2013 09:54 AM
A sweeping immigration bill survived an early test Thursday as two Republican authors of the legislation sided with Democrats to vote down an amendment that would have strengthened border security provisions in the bill.
Supporters of the legislation said the real effect of the measure would have been to indefinitely delay citizenship for the estimated 11 million people living here illegally.
The amendment by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, would have required control of the U.S.-Mexico border for six months before anyone could seek legal status.
Grassley said the measure was designed to ensure that the border really is secured. But a lead supporter of the legislation, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, said the real impact would be to "delay, probably forever, any legalization" for immigrants now living in the country without authorization, who would eventually be eligible for citizenship under the bill.
The Judiciary Committee vote to defeat the amendment was 12 to 6, with Republican Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina voting with Democrats.
Flake, Graham, Schumer and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., are among the four Republicans and four Democrats who authored the bill during months of closed-door negotiations. Attention is on them as the Judiciary Committee meets over the next two weeks, to see if they will hang together to defeat amendments from either side that could strike at the bill's core provisions.
The vote on the Grassley amendment was likely the first of several in which the Republican authors sided with Democrats on the committee to vote down amendments from their own side. Schumer and Durbin also are expected to lend their votes to Republicans to defeat Democratic amendments that could improve the bill for immigrant families but make it less palatable for Republicans to support.
The 844-page legislation would toughen border security, remake legal immigration to allow tens of thousands of new high- and low-skilled workers into the country, require all employers to check their workers' legal status and create a 13-year path to citizenship for the millions already here.
In his opening remarks Thursday, Grassley charged that the landmark bill backed by President Barack Obama does little more than repeat mistakes of the past.
"It falls short of what I want to see in a strong immigration reform bill, so you will hear me say many times that we shouldn't make the same mistakes that we made in 1986," the last time Congress passed a major immigration overhaul bill, Grassley said. "You'll hear me say many times that we ought to move ahead with a bill that does it right this time."
Schumer countered that the legislation represents the country's best hope for immigration reform and a chance to break through the partisanship that's riven Congress and the country.
"We have come up with a fair bill where no one gets everything they want, but at the end of the day, it will mean dramatic improvement for the American economy, the American people and will make our immigration policy much more in sync with what is good for jobs and America," Schumer said.
Senators have filed some 300 amendments on a wide range of issues, some contentious, including workplace enforcement, high-tech visas and extending immigration law to cover gay people who are married. The focus Thursday was border security.
Although the bill allows citizenship to go forward only after certain border security goals have been met, those "triggers" haven't proven convincing enough for many GOP lawmakers, and even one of the bill's authors, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has said border measures need to be stronger.
The authors of the bill are working to show they are open to alterations that could attract additional support for the bill, and early on Thursday they accepted a half-dozen uncontroversial amendments from the Republican side to boost enforcement provisions, including an amendment by Grassley to require annual audits of a new immigration reform trust fund.
Rubio conceded in a broadcast interview Thursday that some amendments could be seen as attempts to thwart the legislation, but added he thought most were intended to refine and improve it, saying "that's the way the process is supposed to work."
He called the work of the Gang of Eight "an excellent starting point" and said there is overwhelming support among the American people, including social conservatives, for immigration changes as long as they tighten border security. Rubio said in an interview on "CBS This Morning" that the public wants legislation that would ensure that "this illegal immigration wave doesn't happen again."
© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Immi...#ixzz2SpCMzb6L
Flake is aptly named.
KantoSooner
5/9/2013, 02:45 PM
I would vote against anything Grassley is for as a matter of unflinching principle. The man is the worst US Sen of my lifetime.
rock on sooner
5/9/2013, 02:48 PM
Guess I shoulda directed my post #112 to Grumpy Old Grassley...
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER gonna be able to completely close 1,969
miles of the desert Southwest, unless it really is a platoon every
100 yards...
Yikes, 300 amendments, we truly need 535 new monkies in D.C....
rock on sooner
5/9/2013, 02:50 PM
I would vote against anything Grassley is for as a matter of unflinching principle. The man is the worst US Sen of my lifetime.
I've been squawkin' bout him here in IA fer the last ten years!
I would vote against anything Grassley is for as a matter of unflinching principle. The man is the worst US Sen of my lifetime.
Lets see that would include Kennedy, Boxer, Sanders, Feinstein, Kerry, Hagel, etc....well there is no arguing with that logic.
I've been squawkin' bout him here in IA fer the last ten years!
And you haven't squawked about Harkins?
rock on sooner
5/9/2013, 08:39 PM
And you haven't squawked about Harkins?
Harkin wasn't mentioned in the conversation but, yeah, he was
embarassing with the John Dean support. Flip side is that the
Americans with Disabilities Act trumps almost anything that he
can screw up now...landmark legislation!
Can't think of anything Grassley does 'cept visit all 99 IA counties
every year, takes 6 weeks to answer a constituent question about
why he voted against the Violence against Women Act and live up
to "the ACA will pull the plug on Grandma"...you know, the "death
squad" crap. IMO, this man is losing his grip on reality and is doing
a huge disservice to IA.
rock on sooner
5/9/2013, 08:47 PM
Lets see that would include Kennedy, Boxer, Sanders, Feinstein, Kerry, Hagel, etc....well there is no arguing with that logic.
Can't argue about Hagel, which Sanders, though? Kennedy, really? Lion
of the Senate and champion of the little guy? At the same time, stuck it
to Carter. Kerry's issue was the medal throwing...lessee..which Pub called
it "irrational youthful exuberance"? Feinstein and Boxer...over the top Libs
from Cali...just guessing...just Libs?
All this doesn't include the House....
Just keeping it to the senate and a lot could be added to the list...cons too. The house would have a lot more.
Kennedy killed healthcare in the 70s when the pubs were pushing it.
Bernie sanders, the socialist from Vermont.
rock on sooner
5/9/2013, 09:08 PM
Just keeping it to the senate and a lot could be added to the list...cons too. The house would have a lot more.
Kennedy killed healthcare in the 70s when the pubs were pushing it.
Bernie sanders, the socialist from Vermont.
Don't remember all the details about Kennedy in the 70's, maybe Pubs
had something that was too good and he wanted to do it himself...later,
health care became his life's issue. Thot Sanders was just too independent
for either party, although he caucused with the Dems.
Don't remember all the details about Kennedy in the 70's, maybe Pubs
had something that was too good and he wanted to do it himself...later,
health care became his life's issue. Thot Sanders was just too independent
for either party, although he caucused with the Dems.
Obama even campaigned for Bernie.
KantoSooner
5/10/2013, 08:36 AM
One thing Grassley did that had personal impact was to wage a career long war against American business overseas. We live in an age of globalization. No company of any size can survive without an international component. And American business does quite well, in general, overseas.
So, what does Grassley do? He raises taxes on Americans living overseas time after time. As though they're criminals. Note: the US is one of two countries who tax their citizens who live outside the country. And you have to pay taxes to whatever country you're living and working in.
Result: Americans living overseas pay double tax. So, one way or another, they cost more for their employers. Net result? If you're an American company operatinig overseas, you simply don't hire Americans. Hire Aussies, Canucks, Brits, whoever. But not Americans. Long term result? we lose managers with any international experience. We become more insular and less competitive in global trade.
Chuck Grassley, killing American competitiveness whenever and however he can. *******.
okie52
5/10/2013, 09:31 AM
Kanto, I thought many US employees were spared taxes overseas...particularly oil workers. Evidently this is not the case?
okie52
5/10/2013, 09:42 AM
Cruz: 10,000-1 That Border Security Will Be in Place
Friday, 10 May 2013 10:36 AM
By Courtney Coren
The chances of the Mexican border being secure by the time immigration reform comes into effect are around 10,000-1, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has asserted.
"It is a virtual certainty because the bill does not have meaningful metrics that actually have bit. It doesn't have consequence," the Texan said, according to The Hill.
But Cruz failed to get through an amendment that would have tripled the number of border agents to 60,000 and quadrupled the number of cameras, sensors, drones, and helicopters along the border. It would also have created a double-layered border fence.
He told the Senate Judiciary Committee that if Las Vegas bookmakers were looking at the chances of beefed-up security being in place by the time reform goes into place, they would give 10,000-1 odds.
Cruz was unable to get support from GOP members of the Gang of Eight that has put forward reform measures and his amendment went down by 13 votes to five in the committee.
Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, one of the Republican authors of the bill, said that Cruz's amendment would cost at least $30 billion.
"That's a substantial sum," he said, "We need improved border security. I think that if we look at this, it's just probably somewhere we can't go."
Flake added that the bill already provides 3,500 new customs agents in addition to other border security resources.
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/cruz-immigration-border-security/2013/05/10/id/503847#ixzz2StuPfmiZ
This bill is a joke.
KantoSooner
5/10/2013, 10:40 AM
Kanto, I thought many US employees were spared taxes overseas...particularly oil workers. Evidently this is not the case?
Nope. I am not sure about military, particularly combat military, but no civilian living outside the US is exempt from the requirement to file returns and pay taxes. The oil worker thing is widely enough believed that people regularly get in trouble.
Here's another way it gigs US workers:
Aussie/Brit/Irishman etc: Salary is taxed locally. Depending on the country, allowances or company provided services may or may not be taxed. I used a standard figure of 1.4 X salary to estimate the cost to the company of a non-American staff member.
American: Salary is taxed locally. Salary is also taxed by the US feds AND, if you maintain a residence that is not rented out to someone else, some states and localities may tax you. So, the company 'grosses up' the American employee to cover for the double taxation. Then the IRS counts the gross up as extra income and taxes that. You live in a company apartment? Even in a place where owning may be illegal for foreigners and renting exorbitant? Income. You have kids and want to send them to school in English? Tuition = income. Home leave air tickets? Income. You want your guys to stay out of traffic accident scams so you get a car and driver to ferry them to/from work? Income. You cover health care for them? Income.
Let's say they're out in the boonies and you have a commissary where they can get grilling stuff for weekends. Income.
Multiplier used to guesstimate cost of a US employee? Salary X 3
So, you can have an Irish accountant and an American accountant at the same job grade and the American will cost you more than twice as much.
Think this lasts? Nope, the American ends up getting sent home and you hire another Irishman. The American, if he keeps his job, loses out on career development and is crippled in advancement because it's just not feasible to relocate him anywhere outside the US. As a country, we lose out developing a solid group of managers who understand the global marketplace through personal experience.
All to satisfy the circa-1900 progressive ruralist thinking of an Iowa moron.
Thank you, Chuck Grassley.
okie52
5/10/2013, 12:47 PM
That's pretty pathetic and for a pub to favor it makes it even worse.
But I'll still support a moron when he is right...like border security.
KantoSooner
5/10/2013, 12:58 PM
Fair enough. Let's hope we can get at least some fixes and improvements through this time around. If we got even an improvement in numbers on border partrol and institution of Everify, and the rest fell through, it would still be better than what we've got now.
okie52
5/10/2013, 01:42 PM
It depends on what is left to the discretion of homeland security and the executive branch. Obama has dropped all deportations except for felons for almost 2 years now. If those caveats are in the current reform bill it will make enforcement a joke. There has to be mandatory enforcement on the border and through everify or we will play this same song again in the next generation.
KantoSooner
5/10/2013, 01:51 PM
I'm not a big supporter of mandatories in laws. It's not done us many favors with felonies. Leave judges discretion, they do a pretty good job with it.
okie52
5/10/2013, 01:56 PM
We can have all of the laws in the world for immigration but if they are allowed to be ignored (as they are now) they are meaningless.
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
5/10/2013, 02:14 PM
We can have all of the laws in the world for immigration but if they are allowed to be ignored (as they are now) they are meaningless.any removal of actual or likely democrat voters will be kept to the lowest figure possible. The Transformation is in full swing.
rock on sooner
5/10/2013, 02:26 PM
Kanto, I thought many US employees were spared taxes overseas...particularly oil workers. Evidently this is not the case?
I think there is an exemption if the company for whom one works
abroad does business in both countries...might not be exempt from
SS payments, $92,900 and can be the same for the spouse is the
number that I read....could be wrong, though...
KantoSooner
5/10/2013, 02:56 PM
You used to receive an exemption for X amount depending on where you lived. (say $80K in the case of Japan. which sounds quite generous until you figure that each of your two kids school tuition is $20k or so, and your air tickets for home leave add up to another $12-15K for the family, etc.) AND then you got to start with the first dollar over that exemption being counted as dollar 1 on your income.
Grassley personally saw to removing the latter provision in about 2007 leading to an actual drop in enrolment in international schools in Tokyo where I lived at the time.
The EU does this one right: you pay taxes where you work, including SS/pension taxes. You collect where you retire. They feel it all comes out in the wash.
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