Thread: No Rebates for You

How about giving 'rebates' to all AMERICAN taxpayers for ALL of the money IA's are costing us in SERVICES!


No Rebates for You May 15, 2008

Immigrant restrictionism is stiffing hundreds of thousands of American citizens and legal residents out of their tax-rebate checks.

Hard-liners were so intent on keeping the cash out of the hands of undocumented workers that they restricted the rebate to people with Social Security numbers. An Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, issued by the Internal Revenue Service to people who pay taxes but do not qualify for Social Security numbers, will not do. If a married couple files jointly, and one spouse is not eligible for the rebate, neither gets the money.

This hurts all manner of people who are working and paying taxes: American soldiers stationed abroad who happen to have married foreigners; high-tech immigrants in Silicon Valley and other places whose spouses are not authorized to work or have not yet had their paperwork processed. These are people who are perfectly legal, economically vital and politically inconvenient.

The government should fix the law so spouses get their money. It is a technical repair that even this Congress should manage. But why shouldn’t undocumented immigrants with taxpayer numbers get the cash too? The checks are not rewards for good behavior; they are taxes returned as a means to an end. Illegal immigrants constitute about 5 percent of the work force and earn much less than the native-born. They are just the sort of group the stimulus should be aimed at, if the purpose is to get the most economic bang for every rebate dollar.

Arguments like that do not fly in the polluted atmosphere of immigration politics, which has produced toxic byproducts so extreme that they make the rebate glitch seem like a mere annoyance.

Industries across the country are suffering and crops are rotting for lack of workers. Congress is debating a national right-to-work system that could mistakenly ensnare countless Americans and seriously overburden the Social Security bureaucracy. Federal agents and local police officers around the nation are rounding up the usual immigrants.

Such crackdowns have forced thousands of harmless people into a fast-growing, secretive detention system that is shockingly deficient in basic rights and decent health care. In a disturbing article, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the United States government had injected hundreds of undocumented foreigners with mind-altering drugs to render them docile while they were being deported. This practice violates every imaginable standard of decency, not to mention a few international laws and treaties.

Smart efforts to minimize the ill effects of illegal immigration die political deaths, meanwhile, like putting the undocumented into New York State’s motor-vehicle database, registered and insured instead of anonymous and unaccounted for. That was also the fate of the Dream Act, a modest bill to ease the way to college for the guiltless children of illegal immigrants so they would not be condemned to dead-end jobs. A model identity-card program in New Haven, hailed for lowering crime, is under legal attack from nativist groups.

Efforts at deliberate, proportionate and responsible immigration reform provoke paralysis, but restrictionist tactics are greeted with exuberance. The itch to do something about illegal immigration is being scratched. Note to country: Scratching never cured anything.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/opini ... ref=slogin

. But why shouldn’t undocumented immigrants with taxpayer numbers get the cash too? The checks are not rewards for good behavior; they are taxes returned as a means to an end. Illegal immigrants constitute about 5 percent of the work force and earn much less than the native-born. They are just the sort of group the stimulus should be aimed at, if the purpose is to get the most economic bang for every rebate dollar



IAs are not entitled to anything from this country, and that includes tax rebates.

Don't get me started about IAs and tax rebates. I am still seething over the last time one was issued several years ago and Americans who needed that money the most for mere survival were cut out of the deal and the IAs made out like bandits.

The government should fix the law so spouses get their money.

But why shouldn’t undocumented immigrants with taxpayer numbers get the cash too? The checks are not rewards for good behavior; they are taxes returned as a means to an end.

Because they are here ILLEGALLY breaking American LAWS!!! Why reward them for stolen identities and taking a job from an American.

If you get a stimulus check will you leave and take your relatives? I'd be for it then!

When you said undocumented do you mean illegal? I'm confused........

Edited by DinTN

Industries across the country are suffering and crops are rotting for lack of workers.

Where are all of these rotting crops? Really, the produce bins at the store have been full every time I've gone in there. Someone out there has been able to harvest and get the goods to market. Family farmers did it all the time, before they were pushed off their farms. Why can't Agri-Businesses get it done?

Where are all the help wanted solicitations, if they needed workers?

I think it's time for Agri-Business to go out of business.

Really, I just googled Rotten Crops and didn't see one bit of news about the "rotten crop" devistation. Results 1 - 10 of about 24 for Rotten Crops
The results are about chemistry, disease, home gardening...

FEAR MONGERING FOR AG-JOBS Illegals!!!!

Dixie

I think it's time for Agri-Business to go out of business.

Really, I just googled Rotten Crops and didn't see one bit of news about the "rotten crop" devistation. Results 1 - 10 of about 24 for Rotten Crops

I definately agree with you on that. I think it is time for all of us to grow our own Victory gardens and tell the agri-businesses where to put their rotten crops.

I tried to delete this post but I have no Delete This Post" option at the bottom???

There's plenty under "rotting crops" but most of it is blamed on weather conditions; drought inparticular, famine, hurricanes, floods, all manner of earth ..."
Others are pure speculation, insiting fear if the illegals were forced out.
There's really nothing drastic or up to date on the scare of "rotting crops" that I could see either.

One Editorial said: "When immigrants flee, crops rot"
stated: "In fact, so few migrant workers showed up for last year's harvest that crops were left to rot in the field."
Last year! I sure didn't suffer noticable last year! If I had to either pay $10 for a head or do without it, I just won't buy it. The farmers would be forced into automation or / hiring legally!

"In order to avoid a repeat of that in the future, Colorado has hit on another idea: Use convicted criminals to pick crops"
Great! This has been brought up thousands of times along with automation.

Some farmers here in Tennessee insist they pay their workers $10-$12 an hour for their "immigrant help" and employ 300 or more during peak season. Well, $12 hour x 40 hours= $480 week x 300 workers = $144,000...times x (?) number of "peak season" months=
plenty of money to buy machinery!

Originally Posted by WorriedAmerican

Not sure where you stand on the issue? If the American married an illegal while in the USA. They should NOT get anything!!! They are aiding and abetting an illegal alien. There's goes your stimulus check .....
That's just what I think.

Yea, you're right. I do agree with you.
I've always felt the same about it.
I had just finished taking to my friend on the phone about her rebate and was still caught up in her excitement that she was going to get "hers" when I posted....another

It's kinda like trying to think and post when the kids are around...DON"T DO IT!
Thanks for the subtle kick back into reality

go check all the comments left on this editorial