I smell bullshit

[Gunny]

Tough topic, I know people who earn in the top one percent of wage earners and still hire illegals and shop at Walmart. I have yet to see a single lawn business that is not 95% Mexican and probably mostly illegal. Americans want cheap labor and cheap prices, they get them through illegal immigration and anti unionism.

I find it ironic that any right wingnut conservative would criticize illegals when they fought the minimum wage raise tooth and nail. In the end, if truth be known, the conservatives care nothing for low wage earners or illegals so long as both stay in their place.

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/04/04/illegal_workers_have_mixed_impact/

"Illegal workers' relationship to the economy is intricate. They are willing to work for lower wages than legal workers, helping to keep down prices. But illegal immigrants also can depress wages for unskilled, legal workers and strain local hospitals and schools."

I find it rather humorous that you can attempt to somehow blame this on "right wingnuts."

There are as many or more left wingnuts who do EXACTLY the same thing around here, and I CAN name names. So that's allegation doesn't cut it.

Minimum wage and unions have NOTHING to do with illegals. And one can EASILY argue that minimium wage increases and union demands are a BIG factor in creating a desire for illegal labor.

But don't fool yourself ... people like ME put the unions out because they are just like our government ... bureaucracies more concerned with perpetuating the bureaucracy than they are the people they are supposed to represent.

And all a minimum wage increase amounts to is taking money away from me in the end. I don't get a wage increase, but I damned sure have to pay the price increase that shortly follows the minimum wage increase, and so do those making minimum wage.

Only businesses/corporations benefit from those wage increases. They're just feel-good smokescreens liberals like to claim they did "for the little guy."

 

[ScreamingEagle]

In the end, if truth be known, the conservatives care nothing for low wage earners or illegals so long as both stay in their place.

If truth be known, the liberals care nothing for the law.
If truth be known, the illegals "place" is in Mexico.

 

[Mr.Conley]

I like statistics and logic. Do you have a link to a non-partisan non-biased website that shows good research on the question as to whether illegal immigrants provide a net benefit or a net loss to the American economy? Much of the money earned by Mexicans in America is sent back to Mexico. I think that, per capita, more indigent illegal Immigrants wind up in hospitals than do American indigents unable to pay their medical bills. Yet, I think that illegal immigrants provide cheap labor and, therefore, the price for their goods and services are lower than they would be in American did the work. I admit that there are many variables. Based on my limited knowledge of the exact figures, I think that illegal immigrants provide a net loss to the American economy. If I am mistaken, please provide statistical information to the contrary.

Most of the information I'm looking at is located on a subscription database service I access through my college. Consequently, I can't link or c/p these articles here; however, here's a link to the abstract of one of the articles I'm viewing. The page itself also contains links to other, supporting articles.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=881584

 

[AllieBaba]

Partly true, but I must say I find it rather strange that you place no blame on the Republicans who, if my memory serves me correct, controlled the House for the 16 years previous to this one, and the Senate the previous 6. Perhaps they might possibly deserve a wee bit of your gumption as well?

But it's this congress which has completely failed to accomplish anything, good bad or indifferent, and who suffer the worst rating I believe of any Congress ever.

People aren't half as stupid as the libs like to believe.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Most of the information I'm looking at is located on a subscription database service I access through my college. Consequently, I can't link or c/p these articles here; however, here's a link to the abstract of one of the articles I'm viewing. The page itself also contains links to other, supporting articles.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...ract_id=881584

…”Because so much of our legal and illegal immigrant labor is concentrated in such fringe, low-wage employment, its overall impact on our economy is extremely small. A 1997 National Academy of Sciences study estimated that immigration’s net benefit to the American economy raises the average income of the native-born by only some $10 billion a year - about $120 per household. And that meager contribution is not the result of immigrants helping to build our essential industries or making us more competitive globally but instead merely delivering our pizzas and cutting our grass. Estimates by pro-immigration forces that foreign workers contribute much more to the economy, boosting annual gross domestic product by hundreds of billions of dollars, generally just tally what immigrants earn here, while ignoring the offsetting effect they have on the wages of native-born workers.

If the benefits of the current generation of migrants are small, the costs are large and growing because of America’s vast range of social programs and the wide advocacy network that strives to hook low-earning legal and illegal immigrants into these programs. A 1998 National Academy of Sciences study found that more than 30 percent of California’s foreign-born were on Medicaid—including 37 percent of all Hispanic households - compared with 14 percent of native-born households. The foreign-born were more than twice as likely as the native-born to be on welfare, and their children were nearly five times as likely to be in means-tested government lunch programs. Native-born households pay for much of this, the study found, because they earn more and pay higher taxes - and are more likely to comply with tax laws. Recent immigrants, by contrast, have much lower levels of income and tax compliance (another study estimated that only 56 percent of illegals in California have taxes deducted from their earnings, for instance). The study’s conclusion: immigrant families cost each native-born household in California an additional $1,200 a year in taxes.

Immigration’s bottom line has shifted so sharply that in a high-immigration state like California, native-born residents are paying up to ten times more in state and local taxes than immigrants generate in economic benefits. Moreover, the cost is only likely to grow as the foreign-born population - which has already mushroomed from about 9 percent of the U.S. population when the NAS studies were done in the late 1990s to about 12 percent today – keeps growing. And citizens in more and more places will feel the bite, as immigrants move beyond their traditional settling places. From 1990 to 2005, the number of states in which immigrants make up at least 5 percent of the population nearly doubled from 17 to 29, with states like Arkansas, South Dakota, South Carolina, and Georgia seeing the most growth. This sharp turnaround since the 1970s, when immigrants were less likely to be using the social programs of the Great Society than the native-born population, says Harvard economist Borjas, suggests that welfare and other social programs are a magnet drawing certain types of immigrants - nonworking women, children, and the elderly - and keeping them here when they run into difficulty.

Almost certainly, immigrants’ participation in our social welfare programs will increase over time, because so many are destined to struggle in our workforce. Despite our cherished view of immigrants as rapidly climbing the economic ladder, more and more of the new arrivals and their children face a lifetime of economic disadvantage, because they arrive here with low levels of education and with few work skills—shortcomings not easily overcome.”

A significant portion of rising health premiums is due to subsidizing the medical costs of uninsured illegal aliens.

As detailed in Illegal aliens threaten U.S. medical system between 1993 and 2003, 60 California hospitals closed because half their services were unpaid. Another 24 California hospitals are on the verge of closure. Both PA and NJ hospitals recently reported that they provided almost $2 billion in free emergency and short term care services, in large part to illegal aliens. Minnesota county commissioners say that the cost of medical care for uninsured immigrants is too high for local governments to bear and they expect a $4.2 billion budget shortfall over the next two years. NC has about $1.4 billion in un-reimbursed hospital expenses annually. The Texas Hospital Association directly spent $393 million treating illegal aliens in 2002. One third of the patients treated by the LA County Health System are illegal aliens and the system is facing a $300 million deficient. In AZ, the Southeast Arizona Medical Center had a $1 billion shortfall and recently filled for bankruptcy.

http://www.smalltowndefenders.com/public/node/114

 

[Mr.Conley]

But it's this congress which has completely failed to accomplish anything, good bad or indifferent, and who suffer the worst rating I believe of any Congress ever.

People aren't half as stupid as the libs like to believe.

Well, one could try to blame the democrats for this Congress' inaction, or you could take the Republicans' approach for the previous six years in reverse and whine about Republican "obstructionism", especially in light of the recent fiasco over children's health insurance.

Of course, that's only a part of the overall picture. Today's deadlock is as much the end product of a divided Congress and President in times of extreme mutual partisanship.

However, to address you larger point, while admittedly this Congress failed to address the immigration issue (largely because the Know Nothing's reincarnation decided to ram a log through any attempt to address the total issue), you can't so casually dismiss the previous sessions. The Republicans had six solid years with large majorities in both the House and the Senate, not to mention the Presidency and the Supreme Court. Where was even the attempt? At least this Congress tried. Given the context, I can't but find any attempt to blame the failure to address the immigration issue entirely on the Democrats to be wholly disingenuous, partisan and hypocritical.