The Dallas Metroplex suburb of Farmer's Branch has thrown down the gaunlet on illegal immigration. The town is polarized between those who benefit from illegals and those who feel like they are footing the bill. Interesting. However, towns like this need not go through this strife. What if the problem were turned over to the IRS? Congress could put a one-year freeze on new citizenship while passing a law fining all employers (including domestic and farm help) who hire undocumented workers (aka, illegal aliens). The fine would be $10,000 per infraction per week of employment. The money would go directly to the Social Security fund minus a 1% collection bonus for IRS agents. (The agents would get nothing until they had the cash in hand.) With jobs dried up, the undocumented workers would go home. The Social Security fund would be saved. No additional law enforcement personnel would be needed. The IRS agents would greedily work themselves to death finding the illegals. I can't find any negatives! I need to run for Congress!
Nice plan, but, aside from the fact that it is wholly redundant of laws already on the books - you forgot to account for the estimated $7 billion per year of "ghost" funds that illegal aliens contribute to social security - with no hope of withdrawing any benefits. Rather than saving social security your plan would destroy it.
The Social Security thing makes no sense. How do illegals take anything away from the system. You only get what you put in from social security. In fact the opposite is true with illegals. Many of them use fake IDs to get jobs with fake SSNs. They've been putting in millions into the SS system without any chance to recover it. They've actually been a net positive.
Half the laws on the books are redundant, Sam. There are an estimated 30 million illegals in this country. Assuming one-third are employed, that's 10 million times $10,000. The greediest IRS office couldn't catch that number, but let's say they gigged 500,000 employers (many of them for multiple offenses) -- that's a ver-r-r-r-y big number and plenty enough to save Social Security. With a large burden removed from schools and social services, those agencies would benefit as well. Of course, there would be less need for police officers. Blue skies would be smiling again.
Again you fail to account to lost tax revenue from a demand downturn and upward price pressures. And the numbers that your positing are completely made up to the point where they contradict each other - why do you assume the deterrent value of your scheme wouldn't kick in until a staggering 500,000 offenders are caught - AND pay the fine? Given highly effective enforcement that you are assuming I think that the market would respond rather quickly and the number of offenders would drop preciptiously after the inital wave of fine. - and by the way 500,000 x 10,000 = 5 billion - that is still not enough to even account for the damage you would do to social security in one year, let alone allow it to balance its budget in the long term. You'd need something like 5-10 MILLION offenses to do anything close to that.
I kind of thought organized crime in the late 18- and early 1900s was partly a result of large blocs of immigrants with limited economic and job opportunities.
Except for having to deal with all the newly unemployed US citizens that lost their jobs because their small business employers were put out of business due to $5 billion in fines. And, of course, now your 30 million illegal immigrants are unemployed as well. Many would probably turn to crime instead of going back to Mexico.
But here's my issue. Illegals don't really use the SS system at all. None of them have real SS numbers so there's no way to get any money from it. Plus social security doesn't just hand out money. It gives you money proportional to what you put into the system. You put a dollar in then you're only going to get a dollar. Which means either illegals put money in (so they can get some back) or they don't put any in (as you contend) so they can't get any money from the system. In fact, as Sam pointed out, illegals use fake SSNs to get jobs and end up paying FICA taxes but since their number was fake, they have no way of recovering the money they put in. Illegals are a net positive to the system.
...and who would fund your campaign? Certainly not all those companies who thrive on illegal immigration that have already bought every other politician. There's always the lottery...
if the amnesty, or "path to legalization" goes through, are the new legal immigrants going to be able to draw on SS if/when they do become citizens? this will put a further drain, and is an issue i haven't heard discussed. and FB isn't as polarized as the media likes to make it out. i live in carrollton which is next door to FB, the meetings are tense but most of the pressures are coming from people outside the community. I.E. LULAC for one.
Whew! Sorry for abandoning the thread for so long, but when you get to be 60, the number of mothers in immediate and secondary family circles becomes enormous -- and they all deserve dinners, presents and time for visits. Wow, where do I begin? Sam, many of those offenses would be multiple infractions by companies that abuse their workers -- i.e., paying less than minimum wage with no health insurance and filthy working conditions. They just say "Next!" if someone gets hurt or sick. And I'm sure you don't want to patronize businesses that profit by exploiting the less fortunate. And pouhe (I kind of thought organized crime in the late 18- and early 1900s was partly a result of large blocs of immigrants with limited economic and job opportunities.), the majority of people coming here aren't thieves and murderers as this statement suggests. However, they don't have large oceans to re-cross to repatriate themselves to their homelands. Ergo, no jobs means no money to send to relatives back home and therefore most would return. To Major (Except for having to deal with all the newly unemployed US citizens that lost their jobs because their small business employers were put out of business due to $5 billion in fines. And, of course, now your 30 million illegal immigrants are unemployed as well. Many would probably turn to crime instead of going back to Mexico. -- As I said to Sam, those businesses really don't deserve to exist, do they, if predicated on the fact that they can exist only on the backs of near slave labor. Also, the people losing their jobs would not be U.S. citiizens but rather illegal aliens. Indeed, there would be a huge need for legal workers, citizens and legal non-citizens alike. rodrick_98 (if the amnesty, or "path to legalization" goes through, are the new legal immigrants going to be able to draw on SS if/when they do become citizens? this will put a further drain, and is an issue i haven't heard discussed.) -- to you I say absolutely. If an employee or business owner contributes, they should be entitled to all benefits. Absolutely! Why would you think otherwise? A-Train -- Why would I need the lottery? Truth, justice and creative publicity are the American way!.
Sounds like you want these poor people to subsidize your Social Security payments without ever getting the benefit of the money they paid. That's shameful. That's like stealing money out of the blind beggar's cup.
Ok wonderful, spin this back at me. I'm not justifying it, i'm saying that your facts are 100% wrong. As for my actual opinion on illegal immigration, I'm not sure what to think. We live in a near full employment economy with hundreds of thousands of labor jobs that need to be filled. Assuming there were no illegal immigrants and we relied on the current legal immigration system, there's zero chance those jobs get filled simply based on the tyranny of population numbers. Some sort of guest worker system has to be put in place or we have to continue to "tolerate" illegal immigration. There just isn't a way around that. And it also depends on how you frame this question. You originally took the approach that it burdens social security which just isn't true. However now you have made the argument that illegals are functionally put into an employment underclass and put into virtual slave labor. Keep in mind of course that this "slave labor" is still substantially better than anything they could have gotten in Latin America, hence why illegal immigrants keep coming and taking these "slave labor" positions. I think both positions, as you framed them, have serious issues. Also, keep in mind your IRS solution has serious enforcement issues. Most businesses today do technically check the immigration status of illegal immigrants. However, technically is the key word as they know most of those documents are forged. However, when the IRS shows up and accuses them of knowingly hiring illegals, their response is that we did check, and we didn't know the documents were fake. There's zero recourse around that. Companies have been sued in the past on this issue and predictabily have won in court on the argument of incompetence. Also, how does the IRS crack down on companies. Most illegals now use fake tax IDs and fake SSN numbers. That means that companies, in many cases, still pay their portion of FICA and income taxes. It's the individual illegals that are skipping out since they're undocumented. I'm not sure how you can track the two and tie them together.
i don't disagree. i mean i don't agree with social security, but considering that isn't going anywhere, maybe i don't understand how social security works. if you only get back what you put in then ok. but i was under the impression that it begins at age 65 and you get it until you die. if that's the case then how is it fair that you can begin contributing at 45 and get paid until you're 90? furthermore, if indeed we only get back what we pay in, then i don't like giving my money away interest free to the gov't. i like to think i can make more investing in my choices than the gov't choosing for me.
as if there was any doubt though. most of those that signed the petition against this measure were either a) illegal themselves or b) in that 75% that never votes regardless of the issue. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...tories/051307dnmetfarmersbranch.621241fe.html
That's basically how it is. They use some weird formulas to calculate how your money is distributed over retirement. You receive monthly payments until you die and the rest is given to your spouse in a lump-sum. I'm somewhat confused by your fairness question above. And as for the last part. It basically is interest free saving. The purpose of SS originally was to provide a social safety net for families during the great depression. In essence, it forced people to save money, so they're not broke when they get old. Poverty among the elderly was around 50% during the 1930s so this was created as a possible solution. The Bush privatization proposal essentially did what you suggested. It would allow people to invest their SS contributions. I normally would support implementation of such a program but the transition costs are so absurdly high that we just can't afford that right now. Deficits have to come down before we can think of a program like that.
I'm on the go all day today, so I will give you the short version. First, I was just yanking your chain with my begger's cup analogy. The logic was just too fun to pass up. But now let's look at your assumption (You originally took the approach that it burdens social security which just isn't true). I never linked the two subjects except to pour the fine money into the Social Security pot. SamFisher's point about the SS increase through fines less the money lost through decreased contributions is more germane. However, Sam's argument still overlooks the fact that the U.S. is taxing illegals knowing we will never pay it back -- at least through Social Security. However, I guess the money is offset by the burden on the school and welfare systems. Solving the "Gee, they had documentation" argument could be easily solved by sending persons who couldn't produce a laundry list of identifications could be sent to the IRS for a letter verifying their tax status. Fraudulent applicants would simply never return.
This isn't entirely true. Certainly you could make the case that the businesses shouldn't exist if they can't function without illegal immigrants. As far as the people losing their jobs, no - they would be Americans. It's not like businesses ONLY employ illegals. That small business that had 10 illegals and got fined $100,000 is going to shut down and cost a bunch of US workers that also worked there their jobs. And if your contention that 30 million people would simply leave the US were true, then that means demand for our products would drop like a rock. It would cause a huge recession (if not depression) and cost many millions more people their jobs. Illegals are consumers too. Besides that, costs for basic things like housing and food would go up since those industries are dependent on illegal labor - so your proposal leads to inflation. So either you're going to have a massive crime wave if the now-unemployed illegals stay, or you're going to crash the economy with both a recession and inflation (stagflation). If you didn't see any negatives to your proposal, you didn't try hard enough.
Because of the heavy fines, companies would be so frightened of hiring illegals that it would never come to this: That small business that had 10 illegals and got fined $100,000 is going to shut down and cost a bunch of US workers that also worked there their jobs An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
In essence that's a completely different solution. (if I understand you correctly) Now you are asking the IRS to police individual people for their tax status and weed them out. If that's the case, Social Security could do the same with respect to SSNs. Either way, that sounds like a horrible logistical nightmare. Going through 300 million or so people to weed out 30 million would create a bureaucratic nightmare that would cost billions of dollars. That goes back to my earlier post, it's possible to weed out illegals but the cost (as in this case) is so high, society ends up losing much more than it gains.
