Thread: immigration: A Mexican failure

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News · W&M News · Notes · Grayson on immigration
Author: Staff, Source: W&M Notes
Date: Aug 07, 2006

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George Grayson, Class of 1938 Professor of Government, is a nationally-recognized expert on Mexican politics. When we asked Grayson to sum up Mexico’s role in the immigration debate ongoing in the United States, he suggested we consider an essay he wrote earlier in the year for The Christian Science Monitor. Following is an excerpt from that essay. —Ed.

… Mexico’s leaders have turned hypocrisy from an art form into an exact science as they shirk their obligations to fellow citizens, while decrying efforts by the US senators and representatives to crack down on illegal immigration at the border and the workplace.
What are some examples of this failure of responsibility?

When oil revenues are excluded, Mexico raises the equivalent of only 9 percent of its gross domestic product in taxes—a figure roughly equivalent to that of Haiti and far below the level of major Latin American nations. Not only is Mexico’s collection rate ridiculously low, its fiscal regime is riddled with loopholes and exemptions, giving rise to widespread evasion. Congress has rebuffed efforts to reform the system.
Insufficient revenues mean that Mexico spends relatively little on two key elements of social mobility: Education commands just 5.3 percent of its GDP and healthcare only 6.10 percent, according to the World Bank’s last comparative study.
A venal, “come-back-tomorrow” bureaucracy explains the 58 days it takes to open a business in Mexico compared with three days in Canada, five days in the US, nine days in Jamaica, and 27 days in Chile. Mexico’s private sector estimates that 34 percent of the firms in the country made “extra official” payments to functionaries and legislators in 2004. These bribes totaled $11.2 billion and equaled 12 percent of GDP.
Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization, placed Mexico in a tie with Ghana, Panama, Peru, and Turkey for 65th among 158 countries surveyed for corruption.
Economic competition is constrained by the presence of inefficient, overstaffed state oil and electricity monopolies, as well as a small number of private corporations—closely linked to government big shots—that control telecommunications, television, food processing, transportation, construction, and cement. Politicians who talk about, much less propose, trust-busting measures are as rare as a snowfall in the Sonoran Desert.

Geography, self-interests, and humanitarian concerns require North America’s neighbors to cooperate on myriad issues, not the least of which is immigration. However, Mexico’s power brokers have failed to make the difficult decisions necessary to use their nation’s bountiful wealth to benefit the masses. Washington and Ottawa have every right to insist that Mexico’s pampered elite act responsibly, rather than expecting US and Canadian taxpayers to shoulder burdens Mexico should assume.

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However, Mexico’s power brokers have failed to make the difficult decisions necessary to use their nation’s bountiful wealth to benefit the masses. Washington and Ottawa have every right to insist that Mexico’s pampered elite act responsibly, rather than expecting US and Canadian taxpayers to shoulder burdens Mexico should assume.

Amen to that. This business of the rich getting richer off people and then expecting the middle and low class to foot the tax money or back away from much needed jobs to support another countries poor has got to end. The bucket has a bottom and we're there.

Mexico’s leaders have turned hypocrisy from an art form into an exact science as they shirk their obligations to fellow citizens, while decrying efforts by the US senators and representatives to crack down on illegal immigration at the border and the workplace.

Well they haven't entirely shirked their obligations to fellow citizens, they still print 'how to manuals' on how to migrate illegaly to the US and exploit all the benefits for free and how to send your money back home to make them richer.