quote:

Originally posted by davdah:
http://www.hometownstation.com/illegal-alien-welfare-2007-09-28-11-41-4.html

Does not include education. Que Que?

Well, I wonder if Davdah's undesirable, criminal, illegal alien wife was part of the study? Maybe Arnold can bill Davdah for the difference?

But let's look at a reputable economic study, shall we? Just to note on the author:
Gordon H. Hanson is the director of the Center on Pacific Economies and professor of economics at University of California, San Diego, where he holds faculty positions in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and the department of economics. Professor Hanson is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and coeditor of the Journal of Development Economics. He obtained his BA in economics from Occidental College in 1986 and his PhD in economics from MIT in 1992. Prior to joining UCSD in 2001, he was on the economics faculty at the University of Michigan (1998–2001) and at the University of Texas (1992–1998). Professor Hanson has published extensively in the top academic venues of the economics discipline. His current research examines the international migration of high-skilled labor, the causes of Mexican migration to the United States, the consequences of immigration on labor-market outcomes for African-Americans, the relationship between business cycles and foreign outsourcing, and international trade in motion pictures. In
recent work, he has studied the impact of globalization on wages, the origins of political
opposition to immigration, and the implications of China's growth for the export performance of Mexico and other developing countries. His most recent book is Why Does Immigration Divide America? Public Finance and Political Opposition to Open Borders (Institute for International Economics, 2005).

Conclusions:
The contentiousness surrounding immigration deters many politicians from tackling the issue. While specific groups of workers, employers, and taxpayers may have much to gain or lose if policies governing illegal immigration are changed, the aggregate economic effects of policy reform do not appear to be large. In revising admission and entry restrictions, members of Congress face the unenviable choice of dramatically altering the welfare of a few voters while having a nearly imperceptible effect on aggregate welfare. This dilemma may explain why it has taken policymakers so long to get around to addressing illegal immigration. For over a decade, the net inflow of unauthorized entrants has been close to 500,000 individuals a year. Yet, it is only in the last year or two that Congress has felt compelled to reexamine the issue.

In weighing the various proposals under discussion, policymakers would do well to separate the distributional impacts of immigration from its aggregate effects. No initiative under consideration has the potential to substantially increase the overall income of U.S. residents. Because the aggregate gains or losses are small, any new policy that requires a major outlay of funds would be likely to lower U.S. economic well-being. In a rush to secure U.S. borders, some policymakers insist that major efforts are needed to prevent continued illegal inflows from abroad. While the goals of reducing illegality and establishing greater border control are laudable, it would be difficult to justify massive new spending in terms of its economic return.

Illegal immigration is a persistent phenomenon in part because it has a strong economic rationale. Low-skilled workers are increasingly scarce in the United States, while still abundant in Mexico, Central America, and elsewhere. Impeding illegal0 immigration, without creating other avenues for legal entry, would conflict with market forces that push for moving labor from low-productivity, low-wage countries to the highproductivity, high-wage U.S. labor market. The acceptance of these market pressures is behind proposals for a large-scale expansion of temporary legal immigration. For many elected officials, temporary legal immigration is still immigration, so they have sought to regulate guest workers in a manner that insulates U.S. labor markets from economic repercussions. But highly regulated inflows of temporary low-skilled foreign labor would be unlikely to attract much interest from U.S. employers. If foreign labor wants to come to the United States and U.S. business wants to hire these workers, then creating cumbersome legal channels through which labor could flow would give employers a incentive to eschew the new guest workers and continue to hire unauthorized workers instead. Were new legislation to combine stronger border and interior enforcement with an unattractive guest worker program, it would be pitting policy reform against itself, with only one of these components likely to survive in the long run.

What provisions might a successful guest worker program entail? To reduce demand for illegal-immigrant labor, a new visa program would have to mimic current beneficial aspects of illegal immigration. Employers would have to be able to hire the types of workers they desire. One way to achieve this would be for the Department of Homeland Security to sanction the creation of global temp agencies, in which U.S employers posted advertisements for jobs and foreign workers applied to fill these jobs. As with the legal temporary labor market in the United States, intermediaries would likely arise to provide the services of screening workers and evaluating their applications. With illegal labor, screening happens informally. Illegal immigrants from Mexico help friends or relatives get jobs in the United States by vouching for their qualifications. Informal job networks help integrate the U.S. and Mexican labor markets. Formalizing these networks by allowing employers and employees in the two countries to match legally would deepen U.S.-Mexico integration.

Matching foreign workers to U.S. employers efficiently would require flexibility in the number of guest workers admitted. During U.S. economic expansions, there would be more employers searching for foreign workers. Similarly, during economic contractions in Mexico and elsewhere, there would be more foreign workers advertising their availability to take jobs abroad. Keeping the number of visas fixed over time, as is the case now, means that during boom times U.S. employers have a stronger incentive to seek out illegal labor. One way to make the number of visas granted sensitive to market signals would be to auction the right to hire a guest worker to U.S. employers. Congress would determine the appropriate number of visas to issue under normal macroeconomic conditions. The auction price that clears the market would reflect the supply of and demand for foreign guest workers. Increases in the auction price would signal the need to expand the number of visas available; decreases in the price would indicate that the number of visas could be reduced. By setting a range in which the auction price for a visa right would fluctuate, Congress could ensure that flows of guest workers into the U.S. economy would help stave off demand for unauthorized labor.

Perhaps the most important provision of any new visa program would be to allow guest workers to move between jobs in the United States. Currently, H-1 and H-2 visa holders are tied to the employer that sponsors them. Without mobility between employers, guest workers would lack the attractiveness of illegal laborers. They would also be exposed to abuse by unscrupulous bosses. One way to facilitate mobility for guest workers would be to allow existing visa holders to apply for new job postings, along with prospective guest workers abroad. 55 U.S. employers could then hire either existing guest workers or new guest workers, depending on who best matched their needs. In this way,
guest workers could move between industries and regions of the country in response to changes in economic conditions, much as illegal laborers do now. What would differ between illegal and temporary legal employment is that the latter would enjoy the protection of U.S. labor laws and regulations.

None of the provisions discussed would be easy to implement, either administratively or politically. However, absent a bold redesign of U.S. guest worker programs, temporary legal immigrants would be unlikely to displace illegal labor.

In the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Congress voted to increase enforcement without creating a mechanism for the continued legal inflow of low-skilled labor. Under steady pressure from business, immigration authorities ultimately gutted or redirected IRCA's major enforcement provisions. The end result was that illegal labor has continued to find a way into the country. As Congress again wrestles with
immigration reform, one would hope that it will pay heed to the failures of IRCA by designing a framework that allows for the dynamic participation of legal immigrant workers in the U.S. economy. Otherwise, the United States is likely to find itself with even larger illegal populations in the very near future.

llegal Aliens
By Hans F. Sennholz

Dr. Sennholz heads the Department of Economics at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. He is a noted writer and lecturer on economic, political and monetary affairs.

With unemployment at chronically high rates in nearly all countries, it is not surprising that the number of explanations and interpretations is on the rise. In less developed countries, we are told, the high birth rates and population growth rates exceed the ability of agriculture and industry to absorb the new population, with the result of increasing unemployment. In the industrial countries, where the rates of growth of population are much lower, the explanations cover a wide spectrum from the Marxian exploitation doctrine to the Keynesian inadequate- spending theory. In the United States, the oldest explanation of them all is coming to the fore. Rooted in the fear and resentment of foreigners, many of whom are illiterate and poor, more and more Americans are pointing at the newcomers as the cause of their difficulties. Labor leaders, especially, are quick to vilify "the illegal aliens" for the chronic unemployment that is plaguing organized labor.

Their explanation is almost 300 years old. The descendants of the original English settlers used it, viewing with alarm the influx of Germans and Scotch-Irish. And they in turn later protested the arrival of southern and eastern Europeans.

Their intellectual descendants now are pointing at millions of "illegal aliens" from Latin America who are blamed for our high unemployment rates, for lowering our enviable wage rates, for corrupting our political and social institutions, and their reluctance to conform and "Americanize."

The estimate of some 8 million illegal aliens in the United States suggests a simple solution to our unemployment problem. Let us expel the 8 million aliens after we have inflicted appropriate punishment for illegal entry, and our chronic unemployment will cease to exist. Now every native American will cheerfully find his job.

In reality, unemployment is a cost phenomenon. There is always employment for anyone whose productivity exceeds his employment costs. And unemployment is awaiting anyone whose costs exceed his usefulness. This is true whether or not he is a citizen.

Rendering Useful Service

No one can possibly know how many illegal aliens actually have entered the United States. But we do know that they are earning a living through rendering services in agriculture, commerce and industry. You may find them in the fruit orchards of California, Oregon and Washington, on the farms and ranches of Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, in the hotels and motels in our cities, and in other service industries from coast to coast. They are working because their services are useful and economical.

Eight million Americans are unemployed because their employment costs consisting of wages and social benefits exceed their usefulness. How would they become more productive and economical through expulsion of foreigners? Would a black teenager in New York City whose employment costs exceed $5 an hour (minimum wage $3.35 plus fringe benefits) and whose labor may be worth only $1, find employment more easily after a Latin chambermaid at the Park Hotel had been arrested and deported? The expulsion of eight million foreigners would not vacate eight million jobs for deserving Americans. In fact, it is likely to create even more unemployment.

Productive alien employees cannot forcibly be replaced by native labor that inflicts losses on employers. They can be removed and deported, which would withdraw useful labor, restrict service and production, inflict losses on employers, and thus cause a contraction of economic activity. The hotel and motel industry, for instance, would be severely hampered in service and capacity. The fruit orchards would harvest less fruit, which would cause prices to rise and the industry to contract. And the American people would suffer a significant reduction of living stan dards through the loss of wholesome fruit in their diets.

Economists readily admit that in a stagnant economy the influx of new labor, native or foreign, tends to reduce wage rates. The given amount of capital is distributed over a greater number of workers, which reduces individual labor productivity and wage rates. But this admission does not apply to labor markets in which generous unemployment compensation, multiple benefits, and liberal foodstamps keep millions of workers from seeking employment. The institutional benefits that are creating the unemployment are not reduced when aliens illegally enter the United States.

Not Welfare Recipients

In constant fear of detection and deportation, few illegal aliens, if any, are seeking the social benefits that induce so many natives to prefer unemployment. There are no jobless benefits, no foodstamps, not even public assistance for illegal aliens. They live, and in many respects are like those old-fashioned Americans before the dawn of the New Deal and its redistribution programs.

While the fear of detection may prevent illegal aliens from collecting transfer benefits, it is more difficult to escape the taxes that are levied on labor. Surely, there are many who by arrangement with their employers pay neither income nor social security taxes. But this makes employers accomplices to illegal employment and tax evasion, which is a risk no large employer can possibly take. Therefore, it is likely that most illegal aliens suffer tax with-holdings like anyone else. They are probably paying "their share" in the expenses of our social institutions.

And yet, illegal aliens stand accused of corrupting our political and social institutions, favoring political and social radicalism, agitating for more transfer programs, and so on. All of this may be true. But we wonder about the political and ideological dangers of a California fruit-picker or an Atlanta chambermaid who, in constant fear of detection and deportation, timidly inquires about membership in a labor union. Surely, every native newspaper publisher, editor, commentator, writer, or professor can be, and probably is, immeasurably more effective in propagating radical ideas than is an illiterate alien.

The illegal alien stands accused of refusing to conform and "Americanize." But he may be at a loss about the standard to which he is to conform and about the meaning of "Americanization." As there is no standard, and cannot be one in this nation of refugees from all corners of the world, he, the illegal alien from Latin America, must be acquitted of this charge. It must suffice that he conforms to the only standard of a civilized society, that he is a human being who was born with inalienable human rights.

The festering problem of illegal entry to the United States and the social agitation that is besieging an estimated 8 million illegal aliens concern us all. We must therefore reject old fallacies and seek amiable solutions. But such resolutions may be beyond the bounds of possibility in the present institutional setting.

It is futile to stem the human flood of immigrants with dikes of laws and regulations from the armory of the police state. If the causes that are generating the migration continue to be active, no fine or imprisonment of "illegals" or their American employers, no government-issued identification card or work permit can arrest it.

To confer citizenship to all illegal aliens may promptly add several million workers to the unemployment and public assistance rolls. To make the aliens legal is to subject them to the minimum wage law, the wage and hours legislation, and countless fringe regulations that boost labor costs and cause chronic unemployment. To make them legal, therefore, is to sever their productive employments and send them to their ethnic welfare centers, the metropolitan areas. Like many thousands of Puerto Ricans before them, many legal aliens would discover that, after all, there was no job for them in the country of opportunity. A few who would survive the purge following the bestowal of citizenship would be tempted by their newly acquired welfare eligibility to join their idle brethren in the cities. And once again, the farms and ranches, hotels and motels, and many other service industries would have to curtail their production because of lack of labor.

Nothing but the right can ever be expedient. In the cause of individual freedom, we must defend the rights of all people, including illegal aliens. But if the political rights of American citizenship entail the denial of the human right to work diligently for one's economic existence, and if we are forced to choose between the two, we must opt for the latter. The right to sustain one's life through personal effort and industry is a basic human right that precedes and exceeds all political rights. It is an inalienable right of all people, including illegal aliens.

For millions of European immigrants who reached our shores, the Statue of Liberty signaled the promise of personal liberty. As long as its torch is still burning we have no choice but to live by its light.

The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty

Before I comment to these studies you posted I have a couple questions. I thought I clarified what her status was before. Number 2, its the country that is undesirable to live in, didn't I say that? And 3, Arnold gets more from me in taxes than you probably make. Don't challenge me on that, you may end up embarrassed. Now the question. When I disagree with your writings I don't recall ever making personal attacks directed at you or your wife. Your ideas are c rap, but as to yourself I don't think I have. This is where you lose what little credibility you ever gained. If you want to go that route I'll be happy to oblige, What do you say? Shall we dance?

I guess I couldn't help myself. I actually read the two. No where was the issue of lost tax revenue due to stolen SSNs addressed. The first one said basically nothing. What was the point of that?

The second flat out lied. "Illegals don't seek social benefits"? Please step over to the welfare office and take a look for yourself. This is one time lacking faith will reveal the truth. The rest of it simply listed all the social ills the illegal is accused of. That was it. Nothing to refute any of it though. So, what was that beside a feel good speech that said we can't fix the problem?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: davdah,

Before I allow you to side track this question. I am still waiting for an explanation as to the lost tax revenue. It is common knowledge that the average illegal uses a USC SSN and maxes out the dependents so they have no taxes withheld. So, who pays the tab? Simple question.

Where did you go? I see by checking the people logged in you ran off again. Why is it impossible to get a straight answer to a simple question? It should be simple to you since you are a tax collector of sorts. Or, did you lie about that? Who do you work for? H & R blockhead?

I had to add this. Dr Hans whom you support believes the rights of an illegal to work illegaly in this country trumps our right to defend our border and our constitution. I just want to make sure we are clear on that. He wrote it and you repeated it and support it. For anyone interested to see what Hudson really believes here it is. This is from the second writing. Second to last section. Read it and read it again. Unbelievable!!! Treason.