Outside of sales tax, what taxes are they paying?
5 immigration myths debunked - Nov. 20, 2014
Collectively, they paid an estimated $10.6 billion to state and local taxes in 2010, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a research organization that works on tax policy issues. Contributions varied by state. In Montana they contributed $2 million. In California, more than $2.2 billion. On average they pay about 6.4% of their income in state and local taxes, ITEP said.
A 2007 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on the impact of undocumented immigrants on the budgets of local and state governments cited IRS figures showing that 50% to 75% of the about 11 million unauthorized U.S. immigrants file and pay income taxes each year.
According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), unauthorized immigrants -- who are not eligible to receive Social Security benefits -- have paid an eye-popping $100 billion into the fund over the past decade.
Some other interesting facts on their drain on society:
Undocumented immigrants do not qualify for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and most other public benefits. Most of these programs require proof of legal immigration status and under the 1996 welfare law, even legal immigrants cannot receive these benefits until they have been in the United States for more than five years.
Non-citizen immigrant adults and children are about 25% less likely to be signed up for Medicaid than their poor native-born equivalents and are also 37% less likely to receive food stamps, according to a 2013 study by the Cato Institute.
It doesn't get much more Conservative than Cato.
It's the children who qualify for benefits, to the tune of ~$14,000/yr per household. So even if you removed their parents you wouldn't put a dent in the benefits paid to the actual recipients of welfare, etc. Just another reason why the positions opposing immigration reform don't make any sense.
So Buster, what is the answer? What would Buster do to kill the 100 Billion dollar cost caused by illegals?
I'm highly suspicious of that figure because it's source, Federation for American Immigration Reform, is a joke. I don't mean that in the "they disagree with me so fuck em" sense, they are just not respected. I also don't think that weighs the economic benefit of their cheap labor. All things consider, economists consider illegal immigration to be even in terms of cost and benefit, especially when considering all of the baby boomers who decided to not have as many kids but still want a workforce to pay their social security. As a matter of SS longevity, immigration is a good thing.
I would provide a fairly easy path to citizenship and penalize companies who employ undocumented immigrants. These people have been here for years or even decades, and have American children. They are part of communities and are customers. And being a customer is important considering a whopping 68.5% of GDP growth is from personal spending (I think government spending is 17% for comparison).
I would consider reducing the work permits for educated immigrants. Companies are importing cheap engineers from India, etc and screwing over Americans who followed every step their government/society said they should "stay out of trouble, get a degree, etc) only to be undercut by a wave of cheaper labor for what should be high-paying jobs.
I would also end the Drug War immediately and assess and prioritize any American policies that are both bad for us and bad for Central America. If Guatemala wasn't such a drug-fueled war zone, they wouldn't be coming here. If Mexico wasn't such a shitty place to live, they wouldn't be coming here. But the reality is our foreign policy in this area has been one of abuse and destabilization for more than a century. Just reading about Reagan's involvement with murder squads down there should make anyone's blood boil. I mean we topple governments so banana corporations can get a better deal and wonder why things never improve down there? Come on.
But let's face facts: corporations want their cheap labor pool and Republicans don't want to create 11 million new Democratic voters. That's why nothing gets done. Follow the money and power and you get the answer every god damn time.
