Give amnesty to illegal immigrants and attach a rider to the bill that also abolishes minimum wage. Then we can all continue with the status quo. droxford, If someone is willing to dig a ditch for 50 cents an hour, why on earth should their employer be forced to pay them 6 bucks an hour. You would have just sextupled the cost of nearly all farm labor, which would probably have a disasterous effect on the industry. I hope everyone enjoys paying 6 times as much for produce, or maybe we will just outsource farming as well. Eventually, all of our manipulations of the labor market are going to drive this country straight into the crapper when we no longer produce anything.
illegal workers work for MUCH less than the minimum wage established by our government. It is illegal for citizens to work for less. Factually incorect. Carry on.
isn't your math somewhat off? if you raised the labor cost 6 times what makes you think the price would increase by 6 times? you don't think big agra-companies make pocket a lot of money and have overhead costs? i think i know a better way. ban SUVs and require all cars to give 50 mpg lower the cost of gas and significantly decrease transportation costs for all goods.
The theory of comparative advantage only works if both nations (and any other trading partners) are near full employment. I've lived in South Central Los Angeles, and can easily attest to the fact that unfettered illegal immigration is NOT a good idea. The poor quality of our local public schools and hospitals is evidence. While the influx of illegals into the local population has not increased revenues, the number of illegal-immigant students or patients has overburdened an already overburdened system. The US already allows <b>twice as many immigrants into its borders than the rest of the world combined</b>. Mexico keeps armed military on its Southern border. Why is it so morally reprehensible for a soveriegn nation to enforce its borders?
I'm not talking in a comparative advantage sense, I'm talking in an overall economic welfare sense. The value created by lower prices for goods and services (which, in stimulating the economy, can in fact increase tax revenues) outweighs the burden put on the system, or so is the general consensus of most economists. And as NW stated, they do in fact pay taxes, especially local ones. As for moral judgments, etc, I don't care to make any.
Here is the bottonline. We can stop illegal immigrants working here tomorrow. All we have to do is fine employers $100K for each violation. Employers would then see hiring illegals as economic suicide. The question becomes why hasn't this been seriously proposed. The botton line is that businesses don't want it. Really what they want is their cake and to eat it too. They want the cheap, very compliant laborers and they want to b**** about the harm that illegals do to our society.
Not just "they", try "we" I believe Paul Rodriguez once said something like, "well if you guys want to end illegal immigration, pick up a ******* leafblower and get to wrk" As long as there's a market for it, people will come. And until Americans decide that they can live without it (and higher prices, etc). That wlll represent a huge economic shock, both to the US and to Mexico. Actually, to be even more cynical, instead of having a guest worker program or something like that that some European countries have in order to solve their labor shortages with respect to undesirable low wage jobs, we found a cheaper, more "free market" way. Under a guest worker program, the US (and likely participating particpating private industry) would have to foot the bill for the administrative costs of making sure it runs smoothly, bringing people over, etc. Under the current system, the immigrnats themselves pay their own way, incur all of the risks, which act as a sorting mechanism as well to deter all but the most driven individuals.
I have a friend who is constantly railing against the evils of illegal immigration, and how it's destroying our country. But he just hired an entire team of illegal immigrants to build his house. It's like griping about losing American jobs overseas and then buying Made In China at the local Wal-Mart SuperCenter. Quite the disconnect there. Bottom line: if they want to be here, they should be here. You don't need a piece of paper to be an American. If the Border Patrol couldn't keep them out, they lived here long enough to make a life for themselves and they're law-abiding, more power to them.
*What is up with the BBS? I've had more double posts in the last week or so, than I've had in a couple of years! Keep D&D Civil!!
I don't mind workers from other countries doing low wage jobs others don't want to do, which is considered the prime incentive for employers "looking the other way" when they hire illegals. But I want those workers to be legal, and to have to leave this country if the work is no longer there. The problem is that we don't have control over our population and our borders. The day is long past when large parts of the United States consisted of a gigantic, wide open wilderness, that could hold all that entered this country, and more. That's no longer the case. My relatives entered this country legally several generations ago, and my wife's entered legally from the Netherlands in the 1930's. There are people all over the world on lists, waiting for their chance to live here, and what do we do? We allow floods of illegal aliens to come into the country every year. Politicians seem to bend over backwards to come up with ways to let them stay and become citizens, eventually, while they have children who are automatically US citizens when they come out of their wombs, from their illegal parents. And this is fair? Forget about the economics for a moment. Is it fair for honest folks all over the world, waiting to legally come here, to sit there while millions flood across our borders and keep increasing our population? Our President is busy projecting American power around the globe, but we can't, or won't, control our borders? I'm against amnesty for illegal aliens, and I think it's time to look at the Constitution, if that is where the law provides for it, and reconsider giving illegal aliens the right to have their American born children automatically become American citizens. If, and when, immigrants become citizens, then of course their children would become citizens as well. We are a magnet to those around the world who would escape their poorer circumstances, but it is past time, in my opinion, to allow any who are not legal to live and work here. We are getting filled up, people, and we can't allow this to continue indefinitely. And GV, not everyone is a hypocrite. And if they want to be here, sign up and wait your turn. Keep D&D Civil!!
yea, lets just encourage more illegal immigration by giving another amnesty. I might as well tell my cousins to become citizens of mexico so they can jump the border and become citizens instead of waiting 10 YEARS to get here from vietnam.
While most working illegals do pay taxes, the value of public services they receive far exceeds any money they put in. Los Angeles is losing its/her hospitals and emergency rooms because too many illegals go their for free medical care. The public schools in areas with large illegal populations are crappy and underfunded because of the sudden increase in illegal children or children of illegals. Tax revenues to support these medical and educational institutions are NOT increasing with the influx of illegals. Over 20 percent of prisoners in the Los Angeles area are illegal immigrants. The Sourthern California economy simply cannot handle the large sudden influx of illegals we have been experiencing. Now Bush and the Dems are both offering amnesty - while my Chinese and Japanese friends have been waiting in line for years. <b>Does anyone here actually live in areas with a heavy illegal alien population?</b> Who here has actually experienced firsthand the decline of local neighborhoods due to the unchecked influx of illegals? As an econ-major, I fully understand the "long-term" and "cogs" arguments of some economists and formerly agreed with them. That is, until I started noticing the rapid decline of many Los Angeles neighborhoods and due to an unenforced immigration policy.
the biggest problem europe is facing is that it has an aging population which doesn't reproduce enough to ensure viability to its social welfare states. the united states has at least delayed this problem by having immigration, legal or not. sure we can cap the pop at 300mil. what happens with social security, which combined with medicare takes up virtually 40% of the entire federal budget.
LA is losing it's Emergency hospitals because of a number of different reasons. King Drew had problems of negligence and incompetence that has little to do with illegals. Uninsured patients who can't pay their bills is another huge problem, but uninsured doesn't equal illegal. There are plenty of legal residents in LA who are uninsured. I work in a public elementary school in a neigborhood with a large population of illegal immigrants. The school is underfunded, but not compared with middle of the road schools. Our school is 100% title 1, and gets money because of it. The schools that are the most underfunded are the middle class schools that don't get title 1 or title 3 money, and also don't have the support of wealthy parents who supplement the shool's needs. Things like the idiotic 'No Child Left Behind' program, are a huge problem. The neighborhoods in LA that I see in trouble are those affected by poverty in general, and not illegal immigration as a whole.
