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1) President Obama is not being truthful because the Republicans attempted to insert an amendment in the bill such that the proposed plan would not cover illegal immigrants and they were voted down in a straight party line vote by the democrats.
2) Given the bills in the House and Senate are over 1,000 pages each and are written in pure legalese it will be up to the beaurocrats to imlement the bill once it has been passed, and without specific guidance to omit the coverage of illegal immigrants they will be covered. If this were not the wish of the Democrats why would they vote down the amendment (mentioned above)???
Exactly. Thank you. I was about to post that immigration reform is something separate which also must be dealt with, but you saved me the time. Also, the SSA needs to have more oversight over tracking fake numbers. The problem with the SSA has consistently been lack of manpower. That agency has always been understaffed (like some of the others where cutting corners means cutting the very people who could save money, and lives, in the long run--like the food inspection agency within the FDA). There is so much overlapping and so much waste and fraud throughout government, it's high time they start addressing the deficit problem from the bottom up.
The thing no politician wants to talk about and none of these butt heads all up in arms about illegals even has the brain power to consider is that no matter if it is a fake SS number or dead man's SS number, the illegals ARE PAYING SS. Illegals pay in to SS to the tune of 10 billion a year. Most of them can NEVER claim a dime of that money paid in under false numbers. The truth of the matter is that illegals are a wind fall of cash for SS BECUASE they pay in on false numbers that they can never collect on. They are a HUGE part of the reason why SS has not collapsed despite 25 years of dire predictions that it would. No one saw this huge windfall of cash for which they have NO OBLIGATION to ever pay out to the people who paid it in. If any of these nut jobs had paid as much attention to the actual Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act as they did to the meaningless and futile Blair Holt gun bill, they'd know that illegals pay a HUGE sum of money into the SS sysytem and they never get it back.
SS makes a NET GAIN on illegals. That's why you won't see us sending anyone home, anytime soon.
I assume you have SOMETHING to back up these outlandish claims about how good illegal aliens are for our couuntry?
Obama didn't create illegals. The Republicans have long been in the business of encouraging more illegals to come here to support big business. But doctors don't generally discriminate, and should not and do not have police power, so handling the illegal problem by asking doctors to do it is not a genuine request. The Republicans can scream all they want but the illegal problem is a separate one to be addressed in different legislation. Why don't you get busy on that?
I can't believe anyone has the gall to call the most generous citizens on the planet greedy, and make excuses for a corrupt government. This is why the Syracuse study clearly reflected that conservatives are much more generous than liberals. Liberals don't grasp charity or helping others, they need a corrupt government to help them feel somewhat "human".
I've seen a whole lot of talk about that "study", I'd like to see the methodolgy behind it.
Does it include very rich folks using so-called "Charities" for tax shelters, as they inevitably do?
Does it subtract the amount each of these so-called philanthropists gets back in their tax returns after donating their old clothes and things and then claiming the full value as a "donation"?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/05immigration.htmlLast year, Mr. Martínez paid about $2,000 toward Social Security and $450 for Medicare through payroll taxes withheld from his wages. Yet unlike most Americans, who will receive some form of a public pension in retirement and will be eligible for Medicare as soon as they turn 65, Mr. Martínez is not entitled to benefits.
He belongs to a big club. As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.
While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: the money added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus - the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it doles out in pension benefits. Moreover, the money paid by illegal workers and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration's projections.
<snip>
Starting in the late 1980's, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect - sometimes simply fictitious - Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the "earnings suspense file" in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.
The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990's, two and a half times the amount of the 1980's.
In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.
Have Illegals Paid for Iraq? - The New York Review of BooksChristopher Jencks's insightful survey of "The Immigration Charade" [NYR, September 27] points out, among many ironies, that employed illegal aliens who are "on the books" necessarily find their wages withheld under nonexistent or expired Social Security numbers. A portion of these withholdings wind up in retirement accounts, but in the absence of a "matched" Social Security account such monies are posted in so-called "no match" accounts, which in aggregate now hold more than $586 billion, according to Jencks. Not all of this money comes from illegal immigrants, but the Social Security Administration believes that most does.
As is not as widely known as it should be, none of the surpluses held by the SSA are in any sense cash. Instead, they are collected by the Treasury Department, which kindly leaves behind IOUs in the SSA cupboard but then otherwise uses the money to fund federal government operations. In other words, they wind up doing the same thing as the income taxes we all pay except in this case, because ultimately we all will have to repay those IOUs, we will pay them in taxes a second time when it comes time for someone to cover Social Security's (and Medicare's, etc.) inevitable deficits.
In the meantime, contributions made by illegals held in "no match" accounts will never be repaid to them in the form of Social Security payments. Since money is fungible and since the Iraq war in round numbers has cost maybe $500 billion, one could say that the illegals have very generously, if involuntarily, financed the whole misadventure.
Brooks discovered that approximately equal percentages of liberals and conservatives give to private charitable causes. However, conservatives gave about 30 percent more money per year to private charitable causes, even though his study found liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year in income than did conservative families. This greater generosity among conservative families proved to be true in Brooks' research for every income group, "from poor to middle class to rich."
This "giving gap" also extended beyond money to time donated to charitable causes, as well. Brooks also discovered that in 2002, conservative Americans were much more likely to donate blood each year than liberals and to do so more often within a year. Brooks found "if liberals and moderates gave blood at the same rate as conservatives, the blood supply in the United States would jump by about 45 percent."
When Brooks compared his findings to IRS data on the percentage of household income given away, he found that "red" states in the 2004 election were more charitable than "blue" states. Brooks found that 24 of the 25 states that were above average in family charitable giving voted for Bush in 2004,
I didn't say a thing about illegals on this board. Not sure how that was redirected at me.
The thing no politician wants to talk about and none of these butt heads all up in arms about illegals even has the brain power to consider is that no matter if it is a fake SS number or dead man's SS number, the illegals ARE PAYING SS. Illegals pay in to SS to the tune of 10 billion a year. Most of them can NEVER claim a dime of that money paid in under false numbers. The truth of the matter is that illegals are a wind fall of cash for SS BECUASE they pay in on false numbers that they can never collect on. They are a HUGE part of the reason why SS has not collapsed despite 25 years of dire predictions that it would. No one saw this huge windfall of cash for which they have NO OBLIGATION to ever pay out to the people who paid it in. If any of these nut jobs had paid as much attention to the actual Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act as they did to the meaningless and futile Blair Holt gun bill, they'd know that illegals pay a HUGE sum of money into the SS sysytem and they never get it back.
SS makes a NET GAIN on illegals. That's why you won't see us sending anyone home, anytime soon.
I assume you have SOMETHING to back up these outlandish claims about how good illegal aliens are for our couuntry?
Illegals are a NET GAIN for SS. We collect more than SS pays out. It's a fact. Your republican rep won't tell you because your ignornat lies are great for whipping the public into a frenzy. Social Security MAKES MONEY on illegals.
I didn't say a thing about illegals on this board. Not sure how that was redirected at me.
Sorry. That was VAYank claiming that it was "outlandish" to claim that illegals have paid more into SS than they ever have or ever will recieve.
All this stuff about illegals costing SS and medicare/medicaid is absolute bullshit. We make BILLIONS off them. They are the only reason the programs did not go bust, as predicted for so many years. The experts never did expect a bunch of free money from illegal workers. Now that they can clearly see the revenue stream, they WILL NOT send illegals home in any significant numbers. And if these idiots screaming about the illegals had any common sesne, they'd shut the hell up and thank a Mexican every time they get the chance. They're paying your damned social security.
Brooks discovered that approximately equal percentages of liberals and conservatives give to private charitable causes. However, conservatives gave about 30 percent more money per year to private charitable causes, even though his study found liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year in income than did conservative families. This greater generosity among conservative families proved to be true in Brooks' research for every income group, "from poor to middle class to rich."
This "giving gap" also extended beyond money to time donated to charitable causes, as well. Brooks also discovered that in 2002, conservative Americans were much more likely to donate blood each year than liberals and to do so more often within a year. Brooks found "if liberals and moderates gave blood at the same rate as conservatives, the blood supply in the United States would jump by about 45 percent."
When Brooks compared his findings to IRS data on the percentage of household income given away, he found that "red" states in the 2004 election were more charitable than "blue" states. Brooks found that 24 of the 25 states that were above average in family charitable giving voted for Bush in 2004,
those earning the 6% more a year, gave those republicans that were poorer, their tax money to help them...
the richer states whose citizens pay much more in taxes to the federal gvt per person than those on average in the red states....the blue states.... have been fronting welfare support in the red states for decades now....and they don't mind doing it, for the most part...it's not dems starting thread after thread about stealing their money to support you, now is it?
it doesn't surprise me that individual republicans on the whole donate more, primarily to church charities than democrats do individually.
charity is not defined by money alone, should also be considered.
I didn't say a thing about illegals on this board. Not sure how that was redirected at me.
Sorry. That was VAYank claiming that it was "outlandish" to claim that illegals have paid more into SS than they ever have or ever will recieve.
All this stuff about illegals costing SS and medicare/medicaid is absolute bullshit. We make BILLIONS off them. They are the only reason the programs did not go bust, as predicted for so many years. The experts never did expect a bunch of free money from illegal workers. Now that they can clearly see the revenue stream, they WILL NOT send illegals home in any significant numbers. And if these idiots screaming about the illegals had any common sesne, they'd shut the hell up and thank a Mexican every time they get the chance. They're paying your damned social security.
Telling a lie over and over and over does not make it any less of a lie....
Illegal immigrants pay billions in taxesThe Social Security Administration estimates that about three-quarters of illegal workers pay taxes that contribute to the overall solvency of Social Security and Medicare.
The agency estimates that for 2005, the last year for which figures are available, about $9 billion in taxes was paid on about $75 billion in wages from people who filed W2 forms with incorrect or mismatched data, which would include illegal immigrants who drew paychecks under fake names and Social Security numbers.
Spokesman Mark Hinkle says Social Security does not know how much of the $9 billion can be attributed to illegal immigrants. The number is certainly not 100 percent, but a significant portion probably comes from taxes paid by illegal immigrants.
[snip]
The impact on Social Security is significant, though, because most of that money is never claimed by the people who pay it but instead helps cover retirement checks to legal workers.
Federal law prohibits paying Social Security to illegal immigrants, but the administration factors in both legal and illegal immigration when projecting the trust fund's long-term solvency.
This is especially important as the 78 million-member baby boom generation begins to leave the work force and draw Social Security checks.
the presence of illegal immigrants in the United States has apparently bolstered the finances of Social Security. Many undocumented workers pay into the system, but never retire or receive a dime from the program, as the New York Times reported in 2005:
As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.
While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: the money added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus.
That continues to be true, according to an April 2 editorial in the Times:
In the fine print of the 2008 annual report on Social Security, released last week, the programs trustees noted that growing numbers of other than legal workers are expected to bolster the program over the coming decades.
Were not talking chump change. According to the report, the taxes paid by other-than-legal immigrants will close 15 percent of the systems projected long-term deficit. Thats equivalent to raising the payroll tax by 0.3 percentage points, starting today.
Many illegal immigrants pay up at tax time - USATODAY.comNASHVILLE The tax system collects its due, even from a class of workers with little likelihood of claiming a refund and no hope of drawing a Social Security check.
Illegal immigrants are paying taxes to Uncle Sam, experts agree. Just how much they pay is hard to determine because the federal government doesn't fully tally it. But the latest figures available indicate it will amount to billions of dollars in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes this year. One rough estimate puts the amount of Social Security taxes alone at around $9 billion per year.
Paycheck withholding collects much of the federal tax from illegal workers, just as it does for legal workers.
The Internal Revenue Service doesn't track a worker's immigration status, yet many illegal immigrants fearful of deportation won't risk the government attention that will come from filing a return even if they might qualify for a refund
Reason Foundation - Illegal Immigrants are Paying a Lot More Taxes Than You ThinkThe fact that illegal immigrants pay taxes at all will come as news to many Americans. A stunning two-thirds of illegal immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes. Yet, nativists like Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., have popularized the notion that illegal aliens are a colossal drain on the nation's hospitals, schools and welfare programs consuming services that they don't pay for.
In reality, the 1996 welfare reform bill disqualified illegal immigrants from nearly all means-tested government programs including food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid and Medicare-funded hospitalization. The only services that illegals can still get are emergency medical care and K-12 education.
Exactly. Thank you. I was about to post that immigration reform is something separate which also must be dealt with, but you saved me the time. Also, the SSA needs to have more oversight over tracking fake numbers. The problem with the SSA has consistently been lack of manpower. That agency has always been understaffed (like some of the others where cutting corners means cutting the very people who could save money, and lives, in the long run--like the food inspection agency within the FDA). There is so much overlapping and so much waste and fraud throughout government, it's high time they start addressing the deficit problem from the bottom up.
those earning the 6% more a year, gave those republicans that were poorer, their tax money to help them...
those earning the 6% more a year, gave those republicans that were poorer, their tax money to help them...
Ahh, so now the poor are Republicans or conservatives. That's a new twist.
And actually, if you read the excerpt, or the study, conservatives not only gave a lot more money from a smaller pot than liberals, they also contributed a lot more TIME and BLOOD than liberals to charitable issues.
If you folks just love being slaves to corrupt government, don't get angry at the conservative American people who are better than you as humans. I can only understand opposition to the study if liberals are somehow defensive, or government workers.
Read the study, then wonder if your objections have any weight. Pretty simple.
