Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to collect foodstamps by Billy Joe
(libertarian)
Monday, December 31, 2007
People everywhere with no understanding of economics have strong economic opinions on immigration. Immigrants take our jobs and drive down wages. Immigrants only do the work we don't want to do. Fooey! The truth is that in--economic terms--immigrants, both legal and illegal, are like brown robots, a technology that temporarily displaces some workers but in the end makes us all better off.
Disclosure: My father and grandparents were Okie migrant crop-pickers who competed against Mexican migrants for available jobs. I have been refused entry-level employment because I could not speak Spanish-in Los Angeles! I am white but my wife and children are Mexican.
Opponents of open immigration (and there are many) say that immigrants use government services without paying their fair share of taxes. There is some merit to that argument, but why is the "solution" always to limit immigration and not to limit government services? Is the welfare state worth preserving more than our more heritage as a melting pot?
If you believe in free trade, then you should support free trade in labor. The only reason labor is treated differently than other goods and services is that DVD players, cars and bicycles don't vote.
Immigration reduces monetary inflation. Goods and services are cheaper when the providers have lower labor costs. Immigrants recycle most of their wages back into the economy. The money they send back to their relatives in the old country relieve our neccessity of sending taxpayer-funded foriegn aid.
If you really fear that your job is threatened by some foreigner that can't speak English, then I suggest you get some more education or training. Sooner or later your job will be done by a robot anyway.
Caveat: I have not discussed cultural or national security issues here. Those concerns are beyond the scope of this column.
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Getting rid of the 16th Amendment (by repealling it) is the first order of business. No more taxation of labor will greatly reduce US producers costs and make them more competitive globally. Of course, this will have to be done with the axing of all the redistribution ponzi schemes we currently have. Same with taxation on business profits = 0%. Keep a small import tariff (1-2%) to help fund a national defense and other Constitutionally-mandated jobs of the Federal government.
Then, get rid of the birth-right citizenship part of the 14th Amendment. No more anchor-babies. This has long out-lived its intent of making the freed slaves and their offspring as citizens from the Civil War.
A felony or too many misdemeanors gets you deported at your cost. Immigrants could post a bond as a condition of being able to work here. Refundable with interest should they become citizens.
Stop this madness at the border. We do not need illegal labor here. Arizona is doing the right thing by punishing the employers who employ illegals. They need to self-deport and fix the problems in their own countries. We need to take care of American citizens and the legal immigrants who wish to become Americans, not sponge off Americans as the illegals do. Its time to return this country to rightful citizens who pay taxes to help American citizens, not the chiselers who trespass our borders illegally.
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