It would be nice if everything was black and white. On one hand, they are great for cheap labor. On the other hand, we can't handle the situation with arms wide open. When it comes to illegal immigration, it needs to be handled through containment. Personally if i had it my way, I would be shipping off all the welfare bums in exchange for the illegal immigrants any day. Back to the general topic, California is the epitome of everything that is wrong in America.
Did you read the huge list of cuts that the state is making. There are many very painful cuts in spending being made. It was in the article posted in the OP, and I posted the list of the cuts.
California is an example of what happens in bad times when government tries to be all things to all people. This is made even worse by the fact that California has a terminal case of NIMBY disease. They want energy, but they don't want any of the refineries or drilling off their coast. I understand why, but it is a large revenue source that they have chosen to forego.
I think more than anything CA is an example of what happens when there are high costs for housing, and the bad loans are made. That's the real reason we are in the mess we are in. There are other things that could have been done before that would have made it less harsh, but the housing loans, and bad practices with that, in the CA market was devastating.
Some of these problems go well beyond California, though. All state governments are required to have balanced budgets. That means you're always going to be spending everything that comes in. If you have more coming in than you're spending, there's going to be a move to lower taxes or raise spending, so you'll always end up at zero. That's fine until you have a massive and sudden shortfall in revenue, which the majority of states are going through right now. Then, you have two choices: cut services, which worsens the problem, or raise taxes, which also worsens the problem. California is a bigger economy so all the numbers are bigger, but virtually every state and city is going through a similar issue to some extent or another. I believe something like $250B of the stimulus package is direct aid to states and cities so they don't have to cut as much in a down period. Realistically, the only good solution to this is having a rainy day fund, but that's hard to do because it means in the "good times", you're collecting more taxes than you're spending, and that's not politically popular for either party.
The lack of universal health care costs you far more out of your monthly paycheck then the cost to pay for illegal immegrant visits to emergency rooms. Not saying it isn't a problem, ...just saying you need to keep things in perspective. Also, FAR FAR FAR FAR more American's use the emergency room as primary health care than illegals. ...hence the added cost to your health insurance that's deducted from your paycheck. With universal health care, lower income people could actually perform preventative health care which has been proven over and over and over to be far less costly than the cost of critical care. It's been calculated that illegal immigrants have a greater economic benefit to the economy than the wasted money in social services. At the end of the day, it's a net gain. How many business would go bankrupt if you completely removed all illegals? The entire restrarant industry nationwide would go into shock. The construction industry to be decimated. The farming industry would get decimated. Plus many other sectors. Those that could overcome it, would incur much higher labor costs ...which would be passed directly onto you every time you ate food at home or in a restaurant. Free market economy, right. You never hear business say the want to export the illegals. Why not? Because they are profiting and keeping costs down. I'm just saying, deporting illegals would have MANY side effects both PRO's and CONS. If you are a policy maker, you damn well better understand the whole picture.
This is a conclusion with no analysis to back it up. I really believe that this is your perception rather than fact. At an average of $700 per ER visit, the numbers will get really big really quickly. Really? Please show me where...in a place like NY, LA, or Houston what those numbers are. The last time I had to go to an ER for a nosebleed at 2am that would not stop, the wait was hours. The waiting room was packed. Very few of the people in the waiting room were speaking English. Except that with the illegals, we aren't talking about critical care. We are talking about ER visits for a cold. I have heard economists speak who believe this to be the case, and also those who don't. I would really like to read an in depth economic analysis from an economic think tank that doesn't have a political dog in the fight. At a certain level of illegal immigration (ie number of people), you start running a loss. The only question in my mind is whether we have hit that number yet.
I could go do research for you (as I've seen it before) but I don't feel like it ...plus you'd probably dispute the source anyway. So lets just use common sense, please? I recently got a staph infection. I went to the Dr. which probably cost like $1-200, right. Not exactly sure since most of that is billed to my insurance. I then bought some anti-biotics for another $30-$50. So just for that, I was well under $700 ...right? But lets say I didn't have insurance and delayed going to the Dr. hoping it would go away by itself. The infection would EASILY get worse and spread and surely resulted in much much more costly bills that may even result in an amputation or death. That's not an exaggeration. That's real. So my cost of <$400 was clearly cheaper than had I received delayed medical attention. Just because somebody speaks Spanish, it doesn't make them illegal. Your assessment is flawed. You are asking me for proof about how many illegals use the ER. I could pose the same logic to you. Is your conclusion that illegals primarily use the ER to treat colds based in fact? Or during your 2am trip to the ER also include a survey of the waiting room? I'd agree that you'd have to take any analysis with a grain of salt. But that's not my point. MY POINT is that as a policy maker, you better damn well have a firm understanding of the consequences of any new policy you innact. Every law has positive and negative aspects of them. Have YOU considered both pros/cons before concluding we are all obviously better off by kicking out the illegals? It doesn't sound like it to me. I just hear you espousing the same old rhetoric. How do you know that? If the illegals are working then they are having an economic benefit. Mind you, all illegals pay taxes in sales tax and many even pay income tax which funds SS and Medicare that they'll never get returned. Plus since they don't file returns, they don't get their refunds. They pay tolls on roads and they pay gas taxes. All these #'s go up as you add individuals. So what's the logic that there is some magical # where we start seeing a loss? ...but what's interesting about your comment is that you ACKNOWLEDGED that there is an economic benefit at certain levels of immigration. You are now just disputing if we are there. That now just assumes there is a magical # which I'm not convinced there is.
I never said that illegals have no benefit here. I never said that any of your points were flat wrong. All I said is that I suspected that you hadn't seen facts rather than mere perception. I posted my own perceptions. They don't agree with your perceptions so you decide to attack. As for there not being a magic number as you put it...it is the basic law of diminishing returns. A basic economics text will describe it.
All I have to say about Mexican illegals is that I have never in my 33 years in Houston seen one on the corner begging for money.
I've seen facts from sources in the past ...that's how I formed the above opinion. I just don't have it at my fingertips. Besides, I'm not smart enough to figure all that stuff out by myself. But also, there is a common sense element about health care costs. You can't just look at Emergency Rooms by themselves and say that is broken. If you are going to look at health care, you need to look at the whole system. So I agree that many people use the ER for what should be routine care. How do you fix that? But what's the biggest problem nationwide? Americans using the ER or illegals using the ER? If Americans are a bigger problem (we outnumber illegals by 10-1 or more), should we focus on that? Fixing the healthcare system, I feel, would impact my wallet in a good way far more than kicking out illegals ...which may actually HURT my wallet. But as the previous poster said, I've never seen a hispanic beggar or an Asian beggar for that matter. They are all either white or black. Never thought about that before. hmmmm.
They're doing the jobs that the welfare mooches should be doing. There should be plenty (or at least much more available) of low wage work for our refuse-to-work, uneducated poor, but it's just too much to ask for, I guess.
im about as extreme as a understanding person as you can get. but as far as to enable someone to do something illegal is beyond me. it makes no sense. come to this country legally and i have no qualms. im not saying i dont get why people come over here from mexico. but doing it like that doesnt make it right.
Beggars are either handicapped, or too lazy to do anything, including sneak into the US. People that sneak into, or otherwise migrate to the US, usually have goals, and are not born into an acceptance of poverty and uselessness.
i work with a non-profit, we receive state and local funds and the economic climate is like a grey dooming cloud that justs hangs over us... we had to start laying off employees for the first time last week and my site is prepared to lose about $15,000 from our budget any day now. The State is issuing IOU's to every Californian who is due a State Tax Return as some one else mentioned, Arnold has instituted "Friday Furlough Day" for State Employees where, guess what, you get the day off without pay! Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Texas actually doesn't seem so bad right now...
Concerning California, I actually have a sister living there that used to register her Jeep in Texas to avoid the insane fee that California wanted. If I remember right, I had an Uncle who said it cost him over 1,000 to register a Toyota Tacoma. I'll never consider living there, and it seems that many businesses and otherwise productive members of society are leaving.
