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As I understand it, the Senate is taking up an immigration bill that will provide sweeping changes to the current law. That's the same Senate that hasn't passed a budget in four years. My family with kids and parents is down $400,000+, it's getting worse all the time and for some reason they think I want them to deal with immigration.
Maybe it's not me. Maybe there's a ton of other people who want them to deal with immigration. A bunch of folks who know how deep in debt we are, but don't care about anything but more immigration.
Awesome. I get to pay their bills, too.
Unless I pull a John Kerry or better still, a Tina Turner** or Gerard Depardieu and find ways to escape my taxes. Then they'll have to pay their own bills.
I wonder if they know that?
Update: Reich Tax, anyone?
Update 2: Luckily, we still have money for high-speed choo-choos!
* - Hmm. That wasn't really fun, now was it? I need to work on my fun.
** - Dig the poll on that link! Most people have no problem with her bailing out to avoid taxes. They may think differently when they start to realize what it means for them.
Depends whether the immigrants are contributors or a drain: highly-skilled employees who will pay taxes and take on part of the debt burden, or unskilled laborers with 3 kids who will be a burden on social services.
ReplyDeleteYou can't have both open borders and a generous social services system.
Incentives, people. Incentives.
Unless they earn about $270,000 per household, they are a drain.
ReplyDeleteExcellent line of thought but I'll quibble with your logic a little.
ReplyDeleteIt's unfair to charge net-contributor immigrants for the 50% of non-contributing deadbeats already here.
And immigrants don't necessarily bring parents and children with them, so a single (or couple of) computer programmer or entrepreneur could easily pay ~$10k in federal income taxes and be a net contributor -- especially since much of federal spending is essentially fixed-cost not dependent on non-welfare population growth.
WC, all you're doing is shifting the burden a little. When dealing with a population of 350 million or so, I think it's best to stick with simple analyses.
ReplyDeleteI really must protest.
ReplyDeleteIf Americans were held to the standards you are setting for immigrants, all or almost all of the SLOBs would be deported!
Deadbeat existing citizens are a sunk cost and do not mathematically factor into whether a potential new citizen is a net contributor or taker.
Here's a crazy idea: Maybe we should cut the government down until it's a size that we can reasonably expect to support, say that which could be covered if each family earned $60K.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet you agree.
:-)
I like it!
ReplyDelete$60K per household, 15% flat tax, figure 150 million households, that's $1.35 trillion, or about a third of the current government size.