More Immigration Facts

The Center for Immigration Studies has just published a new disturbing study ... over 50% of all immigrants, both legal and illegal, are on some form of public assistance (73% for those from Mexico and Central America) ... see: Powerline Blog Posting ... and I could not determine whether this study includes the Earned Income Tax Credit which is not considered by many as welfare ... but it clearly is. This contrasts with the statistic that only 30% of native-born Americans are on the dole. Yes, immigrants are contributing money to our various governments with sales taxes, income taxes for those with work permits, and FICA taxes collected on often-phony Social Security numbers. But I find it very difficult to believe that our immigrant population is contributing more to our government coffers than they are extracting.

The Free World is dancing with a dangerous dichotomy ... offering generous welfare benefits while at the same time relaxing its immigration constraints. This, as Milton Freeman says in the referenced blog entry, is a recipe for an eventual economic and social disaster.

Representation without Taxation

47% of Americans pay no federal income taxes and I would speculate a great many, who work off the books, also pay no FICA taxes either. Yet everyone, including I suspect, many non-citizens get to vote for national representatives who turn around and vote for laws that perpetuate these inequities. (Motor-voter laws, lax voter registration processes … taken advantage by “community organizers” such as ACORN, and the rapid growth of absentee ballot usage are making a mockery of traditional voter-fraud checks.) Thus, we have turned the slogan of the original tea-partiers on its head … now a growing number of people in this country are enjoying “representation without taxation.”

Even in local elections, many who pay absolutely no property taxes get to vote. All colleges and other non-profits nevertheless get to elect their community officials. (In Wellesley, MA, Wellesley College professors and administrators who live in rent-free and property-tax-free housing … and who send their children to local schools … still get to vote for their local candidates. And the colleges and other non-profits themselves enjoy fire/police protection and other community services without having to pay the taxes or, too often, the “fees-in-lieu-of-taxes” needed to pay for these services.) And even more egregiously, students at these institutions of higher learning now get to vote for town administrators where they go to school as opposed to where they (or their parents) actually pay taxes – even though many might also absentee-vote back at “home” too. Such up-side-down logic seems to me to be gross miscarriage of the tenants of our democracy.

“Don’t tread on me,” has unfortunately become “Everyone, who wants to, tread on me.”