Didn't you leave out a little complexity? Like if only 17% of illegal immigrants are receiving Medicaid payments, their taxes are probably a net contribution to the health of the system.

Ohh c'mon the article you criticize is no worse than some of yours. You just object because it supports the other side.

When you start writing articles complaining about how immigration articles/pro-crackdown don't interview immigration advocates/anti-crackdown people then it might be worth taking your complaints seriously. Until then it seems safe to assume they are partisan pieces designed more to fire up people who already agree with you than seriously contribute to the debate.

Link me to a single piece where you complain about the anti-crackdown forces not being properly represented or enough evidence for their side not being collected.

When you start writing articles complaining about how immigration articles/pro-crackdown don't interview immigration advocates/anti-crackdown people then it might be worth taking your complaints seriously. Until then it seems safe to assume they are partisan pieces designed more to fire up people who already agree with you than seriously contribute to the debate.

Link me to a single piece where you complain about the anti-crackdown forces not being properly represented or enough evidence for their side not being collected.

Maybe there aren't any. Until you present some, "it seems safe to assume" that it's not "worth taking your complaints seriously."

"Like if only 17% of illegal immigrants are receiving Medicaid payments, their taxes are probably a net contribution to the health of the system."

First: A lot of the cost of illegal aliens is indirect in that illegals receive health care and never pay for it, shifting the cost onto the consumer.

Another problem with this trite insight is that their children are often not illegal immigrants. Nor will they always be illegal if Bush and McCain get their way. Legal status means eligibility for all of Uncle Sam's potential dollars. The CIS has estimated that amnesty will increase the already net negative drain on federal revenue. The long term cost is of course much greater in that social security and medicare are looming costs, increasingly large costs if trends continue.

Finally and generally: OF COURSE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE A NET DRAIN ON GOVERNMENT REVENUE. We have a highly progressive taxation scheme in the United States. Importing poverty will increase the proportion of net liabilities. It is really that simple. More poverty equals more tax burden. Duh.


[DK: The whole cost issue of illegal immigration, regarding federal spending, is discussed in very sophisticted detail in the CIS report I cited.]

Which Bad Reporter cartoon are you referring to and what exactly qualifies it as hate speech? I couldn't find anything particularly hateful, but I only saw the cartoons through July 7 on the web. The cartoons I did read were I thought pretty good, though I am very likely more liberal than you.

[DK: The whole cost issue of illegal immigration, regarding federal spending, is discussed in very sophisticted detail in the CIS report I cited.]

Indeed it is. In the exec summary...1st paragraph:
Based on Census Bureau data, this study finds that, when all taxes paid (direct and indirect) and all costs are considered, illegal households created a net fiscal deficit at the federal level of more than $10 billion in 2002. We also estimate that, if there was an amnesty for illegal aliens, the net fiscal deficit would grow to nearly $29 billion.

I think Hans got it right, ultimately. But I see your point, David, regarding the policy angle...shaping smart policies that zero in on non-problems doesn't solve anything.

Also, I realize that the CIS only deals with government incomes and outlays. One must consider, too, the domestic economic activity created due to the presence of the migrants.

Hans, suppose, Mr. Fat-Cat Taxpayer can't sustain his business without migrant labor...there goes the hefty tax receipts the govt was banking on. I don't believe this kind of calculation was figured into the CIS tally of 'indirect' taxation. The conglomerate that owns the Kansas meat-packing plant, the huge family business that owns acres upon acres of citrus groves in California...these are the people who would suffer due to stricter controls, and their taxes in sum are quite a lot. Does it offset the $10B deficit? I don't know, but it begins to get close.

Ultimately, I think the philosophical argument against illegal immigration is far more persuasive than the economic one. It's illegal...enough said. What does it say about a body politic that refuses to enforce the laws it creates? It makes a mockery of justice, and ironically, it's fat-cat Republican donors who are at the front of the pack in their systematic refusal to abide by the law in this regard. They want the cheap labor, but not the obligations that would accrue toward the laborers...I prefer to do without either. Enforce the freakin' law. Or change it.

Asmussen is a lefty, but he's genuinely funny.

Who here doesn't remember his cartoon about Jack Davis and the Satanic Muni Logo?

I have a friend who lives in a small Arizona town where a big industry is stone quarries. This is backbreaking, hellish work, but it is possible to earn $1000 a week. Of course, almost of the employees are Mexicans who are in the country illegally. The wages one would have to pay Americans to do this sort of work would be so high that you couldn't operate a business like this profitably. Most of the employees are young men, and they are not utilizing many government services. If these quarries were shut down, the local economy would collapse. Everyone knows this and the local authorities just turn a blind eye to the situation.

Illegal immigration exists because of a market demand.

It was illegal to help slaves escape from their owners in 1850. Enough said?

Mark, Perhaps the the real lesson concerning crappy law comes a decade after the date you cited. Still, one should obey the law in the first instance. If the law compels you to acts that you find morally unconscionable, you have a duty to attempt to change it via the democratic process. Unless that process is perverted (i.e. via undemocratic means), civil disobedience is not called for. But let's be sure, what's going on re: immigration by employers is not exactly Thoreau spending time in jail for refusing to pay his taxes. And let's remember Thoreau's disobedience resulted in jail time, just as he fully expected. At the very least c.d. must be punished, or it merely promotes anarchy.

Finally, I would have to agree to disagree with you regarding $29B. It is a large sum of money, as large as several cabinet departments' annual budgets. But like I said in my original post, I just don't find the economic argument against immigration to be very persuasive precisely because it is so very hard to know, exactly, what the cost/benefit is.

What is the "national hate speech" comment about? Was there a particularly hateful cartoon, or is this just bluster? I honestly don't understand what you meant; it seems pretty unlikely that you meant "hate speech" to be taken literally or seriously.

[DK: See, e.g., how he portrays Christians, as a group. Then consider those portrayals under the standards of sections 319 of the Canadian Criminal Code, relating to hate propaganda. http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-46/267514.html. I realize that there is an endless amount of pro/con discussion about whether any given utterance by anyone qualifies as "hate speech." The Canadian law has various exemptions, pursuant to which utterances which would be classified ab initio as hate propaganda are exempt from prosecution, and there would appear to be plausible arguments by which Asmussen's hate propaganda would qualify for some of these exemptions. To be clear, I strongly oppose the enactment of Canadian-style speech restrictions in the U.S., and I believe that Canada should repeal or drastically revise section 319. But you asked why I characterized Asmussen's work as hate speech, so in response I've pointed to a widely used definition of hate speech, and suggested that, at least in my opinion, his cartoons about a religious group fit the definition. BTW, as a media critic for the Rocky Mountain News, whenever I suggest that newsprint space should be re-allocated from "a" and given to "b", that's not "censorship." It's simply a critic's analysis; if a critic says "the newspaper should drop George Will's column and use the space for coverage of high school football," nobody is censoring George Will -- even if the editors eventually follow the critic's suggestion. Censorship is using the force of law to suppress speech, and I would oppose any effort to use the law to suppress Asmussen.]

It was illegal to help slaves escape from their owners in 1850. Enough said?

Obviously, there's a huge difference between working to end slavery and working to allow corrupt forces to import cheap labor and/or votes.

This is backbreaking, hellish work... The wages one would have to pay Americans to do this sort of work would be so high that you couldn't operate a business like this profitably. Most of the employees are young men, and they are not utilizing many government services... the local authorities just turn a blind eye to the situation.

Perhaps the lack of profitability should be a clue that this isn't a viable business? And, of course those workers will use services, and a lot of them. As you say, it's backbreaking work. Meaning that they'll require plenty of medical care, and most likely they'll be in the U.S. at that time. The quarry is receiving a huge subsidy, even if it might be getting that down the line.

So, we have someone who appears to be a "libertarian" supporting an inefficient company that can't compete without government subsidies. Throw in a little local corruption for good measure. Speaking of which:

There is nothing wrong with foreign investment in the US or foreigners opening US bank accounts.

Obviously, it's extremely dangerous to allow banks to profit off illegal activity.

If you actually think about this, you'll see that illegal immigration is corrupting our entire system.