Thursday, June 20, 2013

Immigration Reform - the Cost

                                                                                                                                                                                 May 6, 2013  Chapter one      
Heritage Foundation Estimate,
The conservative Heritage Foundation has issued a scathing report against the immigration reform bill proposed by the Senate’s “Gang of Eight,” arguing that the bill would cost more than $6 trillion Dollars a claim summarily rejected by Republicans pushing for the bill.



Gang of Eight by-Party Senators “It probably understates real future costs because it under counts the number of unlawful immigrants and dependents who will actually receive amnesty and underestimates significantly the future growth in welfare and medical benefits,” Rechtor and Richwine write.The report states that legalizing current illegal immigrants would cost $9.4 trillion over a lifetime and pay just $3.1 trillion in taxes, resulting in a net cost of $6.3 trillion. And the authors of the study, Robert Rechtor and Jason Richwine, say that’s a conservative estimate.
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Thursday, June 20
Chapter Two
In a new report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that estimates the fiscal and economic impact of the immigration reform legislation taking shape in the Senate. Not surprisingly, budget analysts found that a net increase of 10.4 million people living in the United States over the next decade, and an increase of 16 million over 20 years, would be a tremendous shot in the arm. 

The CBO found that over the next decade direct spending would increase by $262 billion if, among other measures, the Senate immigration bill is passed, opening a path to citizenship for many of the 11 million immigrants now in the United States illegally. But at the same time, the CBO calculated that with so many more people working, revenues would soar by $459 billion over the same decade; the federal deficit would go down by almost $200 billion. Likewise, the CBO found the legislation would boost the country’s overall economic output by 3.3 percent over the next decade, and by 5.4 percent over two decades, compared to what it would be without reform.

On Thursday June 20th, Republican senators reportedly made progress in formulating a security plan that would satisfy enough border hawks to ensure passage of a bill. We worry about the price, in dollars and unneeded infrastructure; but the main thing is to keep moving toward a bill that will bring most of these hard workers out of the shadows.

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