I'm not really willing to continue the debate in the comment section of my article, as it has rapidly descended into meaningless drivel. Your comment, however, is not meaningless drivel, though I do vehemently disagree with it, so I was hoping to continue the debate via our respective channels.
"As long as we have free public services and we have illegal immigration, we will have illegal immigrants taking advantage of those free public services."
Sure, but why single out the immigrants? As long as there are free public services, people will take advantage of them. Is there some reason why it's worse for illegal immigrants to take benefit from those services than anyone else?
The typical response is that illegal immigrants, unlike citizens, don't pay taxes, but this is bunk. While they don't pay income taxes, but they do pay payroll, excise, sales, and (indirectly) corporate taxes. According to the Cato Institute, the money that immigrants provide in taxes is roughly proportional to the welfare they receive (i.e.- they pay 46% as much in taxes as citizens and receive 45% as much in welfare; http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/pr-imsum.html).
Besides, do you honestly think that reducing immigration will help scale back government spending? The government will continue to increase its spending regardless of who specifically benefits from it. If the government loses less money to illegal immigrants, it'll just take it as a cue to start spending more money on something else. We need to start targeting the politicians and bureaucrats who engage in spending rather than any group of people that may or may not benefit from it.
You frequently state that because we don't have a free market, the libertarian argument for immigration doesn't apply. Perhaps, but how does increasing the power of the government remedy this? "Punishing employers who hire illegals, adding further border security," and so on would require a massive increase in government spending and regulation, and would put an enormous strain on small businesses. These measures would make the problems of big government and unfree markets worse, not better.
"Since illegal immigration CLEARLY has a significant negative impact on our economy"
Says who? I've seen no evidence of this. Indeed, a lot of the literature on the subject (such as the Cato Institute article I cited above) shows that illegal immigrants have a decidedly positive effect on the economy. On what basis are you claiming otherwise?
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AndrewSoboeiro 1 year, 2 months ago
I'm not really willing to continue the debate in the comment section of my article, as it has rapidly descended into meaningless drivel. Your comment, however, is not meaningless drivel, though I do vehemently disagree with it, so I was hoping to continue the debate via our respective channels.
"As long as we have free public services and we have illegal immigration, we will have illegal immigrants taking advantage of those free public services."
Sure, but why single out the immigrants? As long as there are free public services, people will take advantage of them. Is there some reason why it's worse for illegal immigrants to take benefit from those services than anyone else?
The typical response is that illegal immigrants, unlike citizens, don't pay taxes, but this is bunk. While they don't pay income taxes, but they do pay payroll, excise, sales, and (indirectly) corporate taxes. According to the Cato Institute, the money that immigrants provide in taxes is roughly proportional to the welfare they receive (i.e.- they pay 46% as much in taxes as citizens and receive 45% as much in welfare; http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/pr-imsum.html).
Besides, do you honestly think that reducing immigration will help scale back government spending? The government will continue to increase its spending regardless of who specifically benefits from it. If the government loses less money to illegal immigrants, it'll just take it as a cue to start spending more money on something else. We need to start targeting the politicians and bureaucrats who engage in spending rather than any group of people that may or may not benefit from it.
You frequently state that because we don't have a free market, the libertarian argument for immigration doesn't apply. Perhaps, but how does increasing the power of the government remedy this? "Punishing employers who hire illegals, adding further border security," and so on would require a massive increase in government spending and regulation, and would put an enormous strain on small businesses. These measures would make the problems of big government and unfree markets worse, not better.
"Since illegal immigration CLEARLY has a significant negative impact on our economy" Says who? I've seen no evidence of this. Indeed, a lot of the literature on the subject (such as the Cato Institute article I cited above) shows that illegal immigrants have a decidedly positive effect on the economy. On what basis are you claiming otherwise?
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