Thursday, March 30, 2006
The Cost of Amnesty to American Taxpayers
was my topic in National Review Online today. After listening to some of today's Senate debate, I think that my article if anything understates the problem.
Senators were told by amnesty advocates that illegal aliens pay "local taxes" and "property taxes." In my state of Virginia, my car must have a sticker on the front windshield demonstrating I have paid those taxes. Those who don't pay their property taxes are listed in the newspaper and can lose their property. Evidently, we are to commend people for simply paying taxes they cannot otherwise evade?
The question of illegal aliens use of taxpayer-funded benefits once they are made eligible via amnesty or guestworker is one thing amnesty advocates avoid.
Illegal aliens do work, we are reminded, that "Americans won't do." Yet for much of our history, most Americans worked hard at dirty and dangerous jobs for a pittance. What changed everything was the 1960's, notes Myron Magnet's The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass:
[T]he culture of the Haves withdrew respect from the humble but decent working life in the process of embracing the idea that the poor were victims of an unfair society. ... If he takes welfare, he should not be stigmatized: welfare is no more than his right.
At that moment the very thing that gives a hardworking poor person his decisive moral superiority over the noworking poor person starts to dissolve. ... If it is not blameworthy not to work, no definitive praise attaches to someone who works and supports his family.
Starting in the 1960's, there were actual marches by "welfare rights" demonstrators, just like the public marches by illegal aliens we saw last weekend. (We are told these people must "hide in the shadows," yet they issue press releases?)
Does anyone seriously thing that illegal immigrants are morally superior to every other human being and will continue to resist the pull of the welfare state once they are legally allowed to take advange of it?
In fact, some amnesty advocates accidentally reveal their true intentions on this front. Nathan Newman argues for the unionization of illegal aliens:
Raise the minimum wage, reinforce freedom to form unions, and increase enforcement of labor laws. Give all workers, including undocumented immigrants, the ability to enforce those rights through triple damages for every dollar stolen from those workers-- and even more serious sanctions for any employer who fires a worker for exercising those rights [emphasis added].
Union organizers tell people that joining a union means less work for more money. I doubt their message to illegal aliens will be any different.
Government agencies now advertise for people to come in and apply for benefits. Only their illegality keeps most illegal aliens from that easy money.
President Bush's view of illegal aliens is likely a product of his Texas experience. Texas welfare benefits are such that only the desperate apply and the rewards are few. Illegals in Texas, like other Texans, have no choice but to work.
The situation is quite different in places like New York and Massachusetts. Residents of those states who though their generosity to the poor made them welfare magnets should just wait until an amnesty kicks in.
|posted by Jim on 5:29 PM|
Link
. . .
|
. . .
|
