From The New York Daily News…
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Face it: Legalizing millions will cost trillions
By STANLEY CROUCH
The federal immigration bill has been sent into legislative limbo for now — but we cannot ignore the high drama and even higher melodrama that accompanied the fight. They revealed many ugly and irrational aspects of what our politics has become.
Those aspects always arise when any group not considered “white” is thought to benefit or suffer from federal policy. In this case, we were talking about undocumented immigrants — mostly Mexican — who, for decades, have been coming through our Swiss cheese borders, finding unskilled jobs and taking advantage of better living conditions that can include welfare and medical treatment.
If we step back, we see that we have been standing in a drama determined, at least partially, by the history of prejudice that Mexicans have experienced in this country ever since losing Texas. Some of those prejudices included the belief that they were innately incompetent, frivolous, lazy and given to irresponsibly having large families.
If those stereotypes didn’t do, religious prejudice against Catholics took over.
Above all else, they were not white, being some sort of inferior mixture of American Indians and Europeans.
It is, therefore, understandable that we should cast a skeptical eye on any criticism of a policy — like this immigration bill — that might do them some good. But, alas, there are real reasons to suspect those who so self-righteously defend the comprehensive immigration bill as either the best thing to do or, at least, as better law than no law at all.
Only the most naive Republican could believe that their support of the bill will magically turn Mexicans, who tend to vote 2 to 1 for Democrats, into a minority ready to elect more elephants. Others have pointed out that unskilled Mexicans serve as cheap labor for Republican employers, who make use of many who have come across the border illegally, proving that the GOP can remove the mantle of “the party of business” at will.
But the truth — and what makes the proposed reforms so troubling — is this: The bill, which would make millions of undocumented immigrants eligible for all kinds of benefits, would bear a monumental cost to the taxpayers of the United States, no matter what their color or background. How much? By some estimates, $2.5 trillion.
Some Republicans have ignored this cost because their business constituency assumes that though they, too, will have their taxes raised — it won’t be that bad since the bulk of tax money will come from the rest of us.
For their part, it seems Democrats are ignoring the cost to the taxpayer because the cause seems a good liberal one, so damn the taxes, full speed ahead.
Give us a break!
In the end, many of these 12 million undocumented immigrants will become United States citizens — but our legislators need to figure out the very best way to limit the burden of the taxes that the mass of Americans will have to pay in order to bring this about. For good or for bad, it is always about the Benjamins, and no amount of self-righteous grandstanding will change that.
But it should also be about legislating policy that’s good enough for undocumented immigrants and the American taxpayer at large. That is the challenge we always have to meet.
Interesting editorial. I wonder why the author doesn't mention that fact that legalizing workers means that, instead of undocumented immigrants being paid under the table, they'll actually be able to take legal jobs and therefore pay income taxes.
ReplyDeletePeople complain about immigrants costing taxpayer dollars and taking American jobs, but I've never seen a huge line of people scrambling to take the kind of jobs undocumented workers are doing. Perhaps by legalizing their presence, we can improve the working conditions for everyone, because business owners won't be able to tap into the undocumented workforce and thus circumvent minimum wage laws, etc.
In regards to this essay, it's really interesting to see the political dynamics of immigrant Hispanics depending on their country of precedence.
ReplyDeleteTheir political favors will focus mainly in retaliation to the government party that has done the most damage to their specific socio cultural history, let me explain myself utilizing Cuba. While other South American countries might be a little more homogeneous in their opinion of the US, clearly there is an ample generation of Cubans who are clearly in favor of Republicans mainly to do with Kennedy's actions during office, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Cubans who lived through that aren't going to easily forget the lives it cost them and are therefore a large percentage blindly Republican, explaining why Florida has had a pretty consistent Republican base up until 2006 or so.
In the Case of Dominicans or Haitians, difference in opinion depends on which side of the border they live on the same island. While Dominicans are a bit more open to negotiations and discussion with the US, Haiti has been dealt with so much carnage that political discussions might actually be a distant dream.
Puerto Ricans are a big mixed pot but resistance to Republicans has been a bit more present than towards Democrats largely due to the mixed perceptions of political views when comparing local republican delegates with those stateside and likewise for democrats, not to mention the lack of Republican interest in PR during discussions in Capitol Hill.
Then you have places like Venezuela, Chile, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil which have been ravaged by most every political office stateside and depending on the specific age of the person and the specific set of circumstances, they either favor one party, the other or as happens in most cases, there's no differentiation and they'd rather an existence without the US government. You just need to backtrack political actions from Panama and below to see why.
Then there's Mexico which obviously shares the border with the US and where Republicans have continually pushed for some great mythic colossus of a wall to keep Mexicans out, which explains their political views in a nutshell without even going into the nitty gritty of how they've been discriminated regardless of the state they've managed to arrive to.
I think it might be compared to the political views of members of the Black community in Louisiana. Regardless of their past political views, after Katrina and all the heartbreak and disappointment left behind, you'd be hard pressed to vote for a Republican based on political views and the only way a Republican should be elected in Louisiana is by having an extensive track record going against he government's actions or lack of actions during the time since the hurricane.
Who knows, maybe this is just psycho babble, but I think it an extremely interesting topic within the essay. Regardless though, good article.
Cheers.
One thing that jenny mentions that is hardly brought up is the role of employers in this whole thing. Most of the little I hear is broadstroke soundbytes like “CEOs/Companies depend on immigrant labor, etc.”
ReplyDeleteTaken at face value, you'd think only Fortune 500 companies were picking up illegals on the way into work.
Until someone shows me actual numbers, I still believe the problem lies with another type of employer: the blue collar trades. You can legalize all you want but I don't think it takes away the desire some people have to always want it cheaper and faster, especially in that industry, certainly many contractors I’ve worked with and met. Not all, but a lot.
I'm not stepping into the whole immigration fray here, and I will only say everyone currently here should be legally registered and get in line like everyone else. That's only fair. I would say you can't have different immigration laws for these workers who maintain the country than you did for the ones who built it way back in the early 20th century.
We look back with pride at them, but the ones today we seem to hate. Weird, no?
But I'd say that even when the people who ‘do the jobs Americans won't’ are made legal citizens and enjoy a hire wage, etc, well, won't they too look to hire someone to do their yard work for them? Human nature no? Work hard, buy a house, pay someone to do the lawn.
(Taking the Devil’s Advocate POV for a sec, I’d ask how would legalizing aliens ever eliminate that great American tradition/dream? It won't. We'll have to look for another group to exploit: Canadians. Hey, back off. I kid. I love John Candy, William Shatner and Rush.)
We're all lazy like that. And even the fast food industry which depends on cheap labor hires more than it's fair share of Lazy Americans (LAs) from what I've seen, not just illegals.
Still, I never bought the LA thing. That's more about a cheating employer not wanting to pay his workers more than anyhing else.
Trust me, we're lazy alright. So much so that we'd pay any price increase added on to our produce just so we wouldn't have to go out and pick it ourselves. We'd bitch and moan, but we'd still pay.
We pay higher prices for cigs, gas and booze. Think we wouldn’t pay more for food if it meant we wouldn’t get any?
In a freaking heartbeat. We don't scramble for those jobs because, well, we don't have to–yet.
No, the biggest problem are the scumbags who stop by every morning in their pickup trucks looking for a few landscapers, some roofers, some masons and only pay them $6-10 bucks an hour.
Some cities near me along the train line, the cops sit nearby just to make sure there's no trouble among the groups of 100 or so guys hanging around. We could end this practice tomorrow if only cops would bust the employer.
But they don't.
No, this is about those employers who want to make as much as they can by screwing workers out of a fair wage and benefits. How can he make more if he has to take more out of his margin to do the right thing?
We may not take away that need people have to not work as hard once they’ve ‘made it,’ or the ones who’ll want to pay as little as possible, but you can certainly curtail the opportunities spme employers have to exploit those sources of cheap labor.
Look, those dudes are gonna do what they want regardless. It's clear they could give a shit about breaking the law on paying employee taxes and withholding, etc. And I sympathize with their plight of not being able to find cheap labor.
But that's not my problem. Certainly any contractor I've sub-contracted work to hasn't given me a break on price because they may have used illegal labor. I won't buy the excuse that a few dollars more per hour overall on an already expensive rennovation or project is going to break the bank.
(You mean to tell me someone who's already spending $10-20K is going to bitch because that same project cost $200 more, all because the contractor had to use American workers? Not buying it.)
Make them legal. Charge more. We'll adapt. We always do. End of story.