Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Illegal Immigration and Social Security

this is an audio post - click to play

Audio entry: I had been listening to Sean Hannity on the radio. He had asserted, with a Democrat agreeing, that the next big issue is illegal immigration. If the Dems were to take up this issue as a cause, they would be able to pierce GW's soft underbelly. The Republicans talk tough, but don't actually do anything about illegal immigration. They don't want to offend.

In any case, my point is that former President Bill Clinton recently mentioned that our solution to the insolvency of Social Security is to bring in more immigrants. By doing this, the country increases its tax base. This in turn would bolster the Social Security system, which is about to have more retirees than workers paying in. Immigrants could help delay or avert this problem.

The idea is this. We already have millions of illegal immigrants in our midst. GW Bush has proposed setting up a guest worker program, which would serve as a segue for them to apply for citizenship. Since they are here, basically, let's legalize them and capture the tax revenue that would otherwise be forfeited. Of course, we do need to seal the border first. Once these workers are legal, they can demand better wages. Then, new illegals can undercut them, which is not fair. This idea would kill two birds with one stone.

To recap, we should seal the border, legalize the current crop of illegal workers to some extent, and keep them working to bolster our retirements in the future. Otherwise, our only option is to have each Gen X or younger support 5 baby boomers. Since illegals don't pay income tax, they wouldn't have that burden. Hell No! How about we say, "tough luck" to the baby boomers? They wouldn't like that, but they do want to stick it to us.

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