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Post by echnaton on May 3, 2010 10:25:45 GMT -4
Every immigrant, legal or illegal, comes to this country and needs to buy socks, shoes, underwear, a cell phone, work clothes, a dvd player, an alarm clock . . . If they buy those from a store that pays the sales tax for them, great. That helps a bit. Not as much as paying sales taxes and your income tax too, but it helps. I suspect that most illegals earn so little money that they would not be paying income taxes. Many might have benefited form some of the "tax refund" stimulus spending over the past few years. If they did it would be a very small relative contribution.
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on May 3, 2010 11:31:54 GMT -4
I suspect that most illegals earn so little money that they would not be paying income taxes. Many might have benefited form some of the "tax refund" stimulus spending over the past few years. If they did it would be a very small relative contribution. A good point, although we can't be sure. I guess my main problem with illegal immigration is that it's illegal. We're turning a blind eye to people who are willfully breaking the law while effectively punishing those who play by the rules and wait to come in the front door. Loosening immigration laws would be an excellent solution in my view. Opening a path to becoming legal residents would be workable. A work permit system has merits too. Just letting the current status quo remain in place is untenable in my view.
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Post by Apollo Gnomon on May 3, 2010 12:17:04 GMT -4
I suspect that most illegals earn so little money that they would not be paying income taxes. Many might have benefited form some of the "tax refund" stimulus spending over the past few years. If they did it would be a very small relative contribution. A good point, although we can't be sure. I guess my main problem with illegal immigration is that it's illegal. We're turning a blind eye to people who are willfully breaking the law while effectively punishing those who play by the rules and wait to come in the front door. Loosening immigration laws would be an excellent solution in my view. Opening a path to becoming legal residents would be workable. A work permit system has merits too. Just letting the current status quo remain in place is untenable in my view. This keeps happening! Once again, I'm agreeing with you! (quickly looks up for falling anvils...) Seriously, though, complaining about illegals not paying income tax is a red herring. I'll give an example. Before I found my current job about 10 years ago, I worked in construction. The trim subcontractor who hired me as a sub-subcontractor (or "infra-contractor" as some of us called it) payed no taxes. He paid his subs cash, personal checks, cashier's checks, and once I got a weird bank draw that I've never seen before - I think it was some way of getting money from the builder's escrow account for a custom home. One guy I worked with had a "corporation" that his corporate tax lawyer dad set up. He owned the tools and truck, and rented them to the "corporation." His corporate entity consisted of a bank account with no money in it, so for liability purposes it couldn't actually lose anything if sued. Somehow, for tax purposes, neither he nor the company actually owed taxes at the end of the year. Totally legal. I tried to pay my taxes, but the paperwork from the "boss" (who spend his "work" day smoking pot and driving from one subdivision to another checking on us, and bidding jobs) was totally borked. I ended up filing for that year as if I had been unemployed for a major piece of it. Most of the concrete crews were Mexican. Legal? Illegal? Who knows? Does it really matter? Neither the contractors nor the employees were paying income tax anyway, in most of the trades -- masons, framers, drywall, paint, trim, exterior trim, roofing and even the final cleaning crew of Mexican women going from house to house scrubbing every surface. The only people who MIGHT have been paying taxes were the plumbers and electricians -- the licensed trades. Many of them probably had dodgy corporate structures too, though. Meanwhile, in Colorado a meat packing plant had a bunch of illegals working under valid ssn's not their own. It was found out because a couple of the actual ssn account holders got audited, and the auditors figured out that someone else was using their numbers. So the entire plant got fired and everyone had to reapply for their jobs and prove that they were legal. Most of them weren't. Some were deported, some just vanished. Meanwhile, every dollar paid to every one of those employees, and every dollar paid to every construction worker was plowed back into the consumer goods economy. These are not people who stash their money into the stock market or off-shore accounts. They're drinking beer, taking the kids to McD's on the weekend, and buying shoes and socks and household small electronics goods at walmart, which does collect sales tax. I don't know of any stores that don't, and I don't think the amount of consumer goods sold out of the trunks of cars is very large. This is part of the hidden and hard to track economic impact of the housing industry collapse. These people, legal, illegal or native citizen, are not being tracked on the unemployment numbers and their impact on the Federal budget is virtually nil. Meanwhile, the sales tax impact is huge -- that's one more reason why state and local budgets are suffering so much. Someone recently was quoted in the news calling for more immigrants to boost the economy, to help make up for the trailing edge of the Baby Boom. The world economy IS a ponzi scheme, and the only way it gets "bigger" is by adding consumers.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on May 3, 2010 13:15:56 GMT -4
I'm not sure that every dollar paid to these workers really does go back into the local economy. Reportedly a sizable portion of Mexico's economy is the result of money sent back by workers in the U.S.
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Post by echnaton on May 3, 2010 13:27:49 GMT -4
The world economy IS a ponzi scheme, and the only way it gets "bigger" is by adding consumers. Not really. A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation with certain investment characteristics. Most notably paying excess returns to some investors with capital contributed by others. Investments that ultimately become Ponzi schemes don't always start out as a fraud but they end up as one. The investment is a financial asset. Much of the non-financial world is not subject to Ponzi schemes. If you buy a house to live in you have a real asset, not financial. You get most of the utility of the house by living in it. Resale is important and the return on investment is riskier than other investments, but the primary utility cannot be arbitrarily taken from you. The economy grows through the production on increasing amounts of wealth. The standard of living, what is really important, increases by producing wealth in excess of the change in population. It is quite possible to increase the standard of living while not increasing your total economic output, if you have population declines.
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Post by gillianren on May 3, 2010 13:59:39 GMT -4
If we're talking about state income tax, no one in Washington pays it. If we're talking about federal, only a few of my friends pay it, because we simply don't make enough. (I, for one, have no taxable income.) Since most illegal immigrants are working for minimum wage--or lower--I don't see their failure to pay income taxes as an actual issue.
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Post by echnaton on May 3, 2010 14:58:21 GMT -4
If we're talking about state income tax, no one in Washington pays it. If we're talking about federal, only a few of my friends pay it, because we simply don't make enough. (I, for one, have no taxable income.) Since most illegal immigrants are working for minimum wage--or lower--I don't see their failure to pay income taxes as an actual issue. Agreed, illegals, pay mostly through sales taxes and ad valorem taxes through renting apartments. That would be the bulk of the tax burden even if they were legal.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on May 3, 2010 15:19:40 GMT -4
What about the idea that illegals tend to have no medical insurance and receive their care through expensive emergency room visits?
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Post by gillianren on May 5, 2010 23:22:31 GMT -4
Now, John McCain is calling the reading of Miranda rights to a US citizen a serious mistake. This despite the fact that the case which gave us the term is Miranda v. Arizona, so in his own home state. You know, the one which established that not making people aware of their rights is unconstitutional. And got Miranda himself a retrial and has gotten all kinds of cases thrown out since then.
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Post by bazbear on May 6, 2010 0:56:59 GMT -4
What about the idea that illegals tend to have no medical insurance and receive their care through expensive emergency room visits? Well if they are here, it IS the humanitarian thing to do. Of course they seem to add to the economy far more than they detract anyway. It's minutia as far as I can tell.
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Post by PhantomWolf on May 6, 2010 9:28:24 GMT -4
Two questions for those arguing on the side of the illegals. What is the point of having imagration controls if people can flaut it and stay illegally with no repercussions? Or do you think that it should be open slather on who can stay in the US, so that anyone that gets off a plane or boat or crosses a border can just set up and stay without the Government, as the local people's representatives, having any say in the matter?
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Post by echnaton on May 6, 2010 9:36:43 GMT -4
Now, John McCain is calling the reading of Miranda rights to a US citizen a serious mistake. This despite the fact that the case which gave us the term is Miranda v. Arizona, so in his own home state. You know, the one which established that not making people aware of their rights is unconstitutional. And got Miranda himself a retrial and has gotten all kinds of cases thrown out since then. What I read in the articles is that he is calling for interrogation of terror related suspects before reading Miranda rights to determine the extent of any conspiracy. He specifically addresses the case of Faisal Shahzad, who is an American citizen and any information learned in such an interrogation would be inadmissible in court. It does not appear to be a wholesale condemnation of Miranda rights for all accused. Some in Congress have called for classifying all terror suspects as enemy combatants, a move that would seriously limit their rights. But I don't see where McCain has made such a call.
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Post by gillianren on May 6, 2010 13:11:54 GMT -4
Two questions for those arguing on the side of the illegals. What is the point of having imagration controls if people can flaut it and stay illegally with no repercussions? Or do you think that it should be open slather on who can stay in the US, so that anyone that gets off a plane or boat or crosses a border can just set up and stay without the Government, as the local people's representatives, having any say in the matter? The way US immigration is handled now is based on old standards based on keeping "them" out--had the standards been set a hundred years earlier, the number of Irish allowed in the country would be far, far lower. As it is, current law limits immigration to an absolute number, including limits by country. When my most of my ancestors entered the US, there were no restrictions on immigration; when the ancestors of most of the people arguing in favour of limitation entered the US, there were no restrictions on immigration. We as a nation are economically dependent on a large flow of immigrant labour, in part because immigrants will work for lower pay. Indeed, the immigration restrictions and subsequent creation of "illegal" immigration at all has the side effect of decreasing our food costs greatly, given that they cannot lobby for minimum wage without being deported. There aren't "Okies" anymore as in Grapes of Wrath to do the work. I would not, however, consider myself as arguing "for" illegal immigration. I am calling it out as a political talking point espoused by people who either don't look at the evidence or are intentionally ignoring it. We talk about terrorism in terms which exclude Timothy McVeigh, who I believe was also anti-immigration. It is the law that immigration is so strictly limited, but you know, Prohibition was the law, too, and we see how well that worked. Sometimes, law are impractical. Do I, then, favour throwing out immigration laws entirely? I'm not sure just yet. However, I do know that the system is currently broken. It has been for some time--these are the same immigration laws which were used sixty and seventy years ago to keep out Jews. There hasn't been substantive reform based on a changing world, and there needs to be. The situation is just not as simple as "keep them all out." What I read in the articles is that he is calling for interrogation of terror related suspects before reading Miranda rights to determine the extent of any conspiracy. He specifically addresses the case of Faisal Shahzad, who is an American citizen and any information learned in such an interrogation would be inadmissible in court. It does not appear to be a wholesale condemnation of Miranda rights for all accused. That's not actually the point. The point is, he is a US citizen, and the rights do apply. It is also true that we read non-citizens Miranda rights every single day, regardless of what they're arrested for. It's only a "big mistake" if McCain wants this specific case, which I know is what he's specifically referencing, thrown out on a technicality. I don't see where I said he did. I'm referring to one specific quote. However, does that mean we'd start giving "terror suspects" their Geneva Convention rights? Because that would be a good idea.
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Post by echnaton on May 6, 2010 13:29:30 GMT -4
That's not actually the point. The point is, he is a US citizen, and the rights do apply. It is also true that we read non-citizens Miranda rights every single day, regardless of what they're arrested for. It's only a "big mistake" if McCain wants this specific case, which I know is what he's specifically referencing, thrown out on a technicality. In my limited understanding of the rights of the accused, interrogations may take place in advance of Miranda warnings. However any information gained in that interrogation may not be used at trial. While it limits prosecutors, the case would only be thrown out if the prosecution introduced the evidence. It may or may not be a good strategy. McCain may have had other things on his mind, the articles are rather vague. I think that we can agree that Congress members weighting in on such matters is not conductive to a fair legal proceeding.
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Post by echnaton on May 6, 2010 13:40:50 GMT -4
I don't see where I said he did. I'm referring to one specific quote. However, does that mean we'd start giving "terror suspects" their Geneva Convention rights? Because that would be a good idea. I was not trying to put words in your mouth but to put some context around the topic. In my understanding, enemy combatants are not covered under the Geneva Convention, which is a treaty among states on how to treat one anothers soldiers. Non-state authorized combatants are on their own, legally speaking. Which is not to say that we should treat them harshly. The US should in fact treat them as it wishes its citizens to be treated abroad. I would find it troubling if Shahzad, were classified as an enemy combatant.
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