Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Milton Friedman: Illegal Immigration Only Helps When Its Illegal

Friedman is very good here.



   -RW

3 comments:

  1. He's good until he says "it's only good so long as it's illegal." It's just too easy for illegal immigrants to obtain welfare benefits. Here are just some ways:

    1) Through children born in the United States the illegal parent receives food stamps, SSI, and Section 8 housing
    2) Through taxpayer supported medical care and public education
    3) Through fraud - fake Social Security numbers and birth certificates

    Mises, referring to the tax code, said Capitalism breathes through those loopholes. Well immigrants breathe through the welfare law loopholes. Illegals receive 20% more welfare on average than legal immigrants, according to a CIS study a few years ago. http://cis.org/Welfare-Use-Legal-Illegal-Immigrant-Households

    Friedman should have stopped with Free Immigration only works with no welfare state, period. I'm guessing the sound money prior to 1914 also helped, but I have no evidence to support that.

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    Replies
    1. Re: Stuffed Pimento,

      It's a lie that it is easy for illegal (and even legal) immigrants to get welfare. Take a look at the federal budget and you will realize immediately that the biggest population receiving welfare is made of the elderly and not immigrants. Even with US born children people don't get assistance unless they present an SSN. Anti-immigrant xenophobes peddle this lie as a matter of routine.

      That study that purports to show that immigrant "households" receive more welfare than non-immigrant "households" is fraudulent. That report is merely a rehashed report issued by an anti-immigrant zealot in the Heritage Foundation (CIS is an anti-immigrant think tank that routinely issues fraudulent reports from time to time) which fudges the data by lumping together immigrants with non-immigrants inside "households" instead of looking at individual recipients. The CATO Institute has been debunking this report since it was first issued back in the 90s.

      The problem with Friedman's assessment is that it denies the positive effect that immigrants generate for the economy regardless if there's a welfare system in place or not. Immigrants already come ready to work; the wealth they help create funds these programs that the xenophobes accuse them of mooching from. If you and the xenophobes were sincere about welfare, you would then advocate for zero population growth because babies and children do not work and consume almost all the welfare obtained by their parents.

      I also want to tell you that you're being intellectually dishonest when you talk about taxpayer-funded "education". The thing you neglect to mention is thst education in this country is COMPULSORY, and that immigrants ARE taxpayers.

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    2. Here's the link with the explanation from CATO why the CIS report uses a 'suspect' methodology. They're being too kind; I looked at the methodology and it is frankly fraudulent.

      http://www.cato.org/blog/center-immigration-studies-exaggerates-immigrant-welfare-use

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