White House Gives No Evidence Amnesty Boosts Economy
Posted 06:41 PM ET
Immigration:
The White House would have us believe amnesty is its new jobs program,
magically transforming millions of illegals from economic liabilities
into assets. It's the electorate, not the economy, stupid.
According to a new missive from President Obama's in-house economic advisers, the Senate's amnesty bill is going to accomplish all the things that Obama's 2009 trillion-dollar stimulus was supposed to.
Another amnesty for illegal aliens — 11 million of them this time — will "increase economic growth," the White House contends, citing Congressional Budget Office estimates of a 3.3% gain in 2023 and 5.4% in 2033.
Hear that, everybody in the unemployment lines? Just hold on another decade or two.
No less than three times, the White House pamphlet tells us of "immigrants creating new inventions ... and improvements in production processes."
What's more, "stronger technology, tourism, hospitality, agriculture, and housing industries are just some of the key ways that immigration reform strengthens the U.S. economy."
Well, gee, if amnesty is that great, how come Obama didn't campaign on it — either in 2008 or 2012?
In his 2008 convention speech, Obama's only mention of immigration was that "an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers."
In 2012, his only references to immigration were in lamenting the deportation of illegals and lumping recent immigrants in with other phony scapegoats — "our welfare recipients or corporations or unions or immigrants or gays or any other group we're told to blame for our troubles."
Amnesty doesn't sell as economic policy, and for good reason. The Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard notes that critics of "comprehensive immigration reform," in particular the Heritage Foundation, have put out mountains of evidence reflecting this.
As Bedard notes, "after amnesty, immigrants will cost governments $12,433 in benefits over the taxes they pay per year." And $592,000 each over a lifetime.
A Heritage special report in May by Robert Rector and Jason Richwine found that "Overall, households headed by an unlawful immigrant received an average of $24,721 per household in direct benefits, means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services in FY 2010."
According to the Heritage Foundation scholars, the $24,721 figure includes all those benefits "but excludes the cost of public goods, interest on the government debt, and other payments for prior government functions."
And what about illegals as revenue generators?
"By contrast, unlawful immigrant households on average paid only $10,334 in taxes," Rector and Richwine found. "Thus, unlawful immigrant households received $2.40 in benefits and services for each dollar paid in taxes."
The White House document argued that "Studies of the 1986 immigration reform law found that legalizing immigrants saw wage gains in the range of 10% as a result of obtaining legal status," but 10% comes nowhere near to making up the lopsided tax/benefit discrepancy that Heritage found.
Veteran journalist M. Stanton Evans, after reading the Senate bill in its entirety, wrote in CNSNews.com last month: "It is shot through with provisos that would swell the number of aliens on a 'path to citizenship' to three or four times the 11 million illegals" currently here, and includes "a fund, amounting to $50 million (with more money to be added as needed), to represent illegals in every phase" of the "path to citizenship" process.
The big push to get House Republicans to enact the Senate amnesty bill has nothing to do with boosting the economy, as the White House all of a sudden is telling us. It is entirely about manufacturing new Democratic votes for the years and decades ahead.
According to a new missive from President Obama's in-house economic advisers, the Senate's amnesty bill is going to accomplish all the things that Obama's 2009 trillion-dollar stimulus was supposed to.
Another amnesty for illegal aliens — 11 million of them this time — will "increase economic growth," the White House contends, citing Congressional Budget Office estimates of a 3.3% gain in 2023 and 5.4% in 2033.
Hear that, everybody in the unemployment lines? Just hold on another decade or two.
No less than three times, the White House pamphlet tells us of "immigrants creating new inventions ... and improvements in production processes."
What's more, "stronger technology, tourism, hospitality, agriculture, and housing industries are just some of the key ways that immigration reform strengthens the U.S. economy."
Well, gee, if amnesty is that great, how come Obama didn't campaign on it — either in 2008 or 2012?
In his 2008 convention speech, Obama's only mention of immigration was that "an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers."
In 2012, his only references to immigration were in lamenting the deportation of illegals and lumping recent immigrants in with other phony scapegoats — "our welfare recipients or corporations or unions or immigrants or gays or any other group we're told to blame for our troubles."
Amnesty doesn't sell as economic policy, and for good reason. The Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard notes that critics of "comprehensive immigration reform," in particular the Heritage Foundation, have put out mountains of evidence reflecting this.
As Bedard notes, "after amnesty, immigrants will cost governments $12,433 in benefits over the taxes they pay per year." And $592,000 each over a lifetime.
A Heritage special report in May by Robert Rector and Jason Richwine found that "Overall, households headed by an unlawful immigrant received an average of $24,721 per household in direct benefits, means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services in FY 2010."
According to the Heritage Foundation scholars, the $24,721 figure includes all those benefits "but excludes the cost of public goods, interest on the government debt, and other payments for prior government functions."
And what about illegals as revenue generators?
"By contrast, unlawful immigrant households on average paid only $10,334 in taxes," Rector and Richwine found. "Thus, unlawful immigrant households received $2.40 in benefits and services for each dollar paid in taxes."
The White House document argued that "Studies of the 1986 immigration reform law found that legalizing immigrants saw wage gains in the range of 10% as a result of obtaining legal status," but 10% comes nowhere near to making up the lopsided tax/benefit discrepancy that Heritage found.
Veteran journalist M. Stanton Evans, after reading the Senate bill in its entirety, wrote in CNSNews.com last month: "It is shot through with provisos that would swell the number of aliens on a 'path to citizenship' to three or four times the 11 million illegals" currently here, and includes "a fund, amounting to $50 million (with more money to be added as needed), to represent illegals in every phase" of the "path to citizenship" process.
The big push to get House Republicans to enact the Senate amnesty bill has nothing to do with boosting the economy, as the White House all of a sudden is telling us. It is entirely about manufacturing new Democratic votes for the years and decades ahead.
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