A study sponsored by an Elitist Special Interest Group supports same Elitist Special Interest Group’s AGENDA! This is really objective NEWS?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 93329.html

Rick Casey
COMMENTARY
Immigration economics: six from six
By RICK CASEY
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
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I would like to thank the business leadership of Houston for commissioning an economic study of the impact of undocumented workers — illegal immigrants to many of my fine readers — on the economies of the United States and Texas.

Economist Ray Perryman forcefully argues that immigrants, including those who are less than legal, are vital to the U.S. economy.

He's right, and the points he makes are very important.

Of course, I have no faith in his numbers.

That's partly because anyone who projects out numbers regarding an underground economy without soaking the figures in large gobs of humility is not to be trusted.


You sure it's not 8,101,325?
Many immigrants are paid off the books, but the problem is even more basic than that. We can't even agree how many there are.

Perryman puts the number of permanent jobs held by undocumented workers at the decidedly unhumble figure of 8,101,324. The number of undocumented immigrants, including children and others not holding permanent jobs, is higher. But how much higher?

The total in 2000, according to the Census Bureau, was 8 million.

In 2006, according to the Department of Homeland Security, it was 11 million.

The same year, the Pew Hispanic Center put it at 12 million, up from 10.3 million the same group estimated two years earlier.


A competitor one-ups me
But a Bear Stearns analysis of 2005 Census Bureau statistics put it at 20 million.

If the base numbers are that squishy, the economic house built on top of them is shaky indeed.

Yet I think Perryman, who understands that the media love phony precision more than rounded-off estimates, is going in the right direction. But I'm uncomfortable taking the ride with him. I've seen him work before.

It was nearly 20 years ago and then-Mayor Henry Cisneros was desperately trying to persuade the voters of San Antonio to tax themselves for a domed football stadium, under the belief that if he built it, they (the NFL) would come.

Polls showed the voters knew better, so it was decided to sell the stadium also as a convention facility. The Chamber of Commerce paid Perryman $35,000 for a study that predicted the stadium would be an economic boon.

I was suspicious from the first page and more suspicious at the end.

The introduction described San Antonio as the 10th-largest city in the nation, a statistic that has no place in an economic study.

The economics of cities are defined by the size of their markets. At that time, San Antonio, which had few suburbs, wasn't among the top 40 markets.

Then there was the end of the study — a set of tables predicting with proud specificity how many permanent jobs of what sort would be added to the economy by that edifice. I remember writing that I was reluctant to support any endeavor that would produce more lawyers than teachers.

A columnist in the competing paper one-upped me.

He discounted the study as unrealistic because it didn't find that a combined NFL stadium and convention facility didn't add one prostitute or cocaine dealer.

In fact, of course, the Alamodome had very little economic impact. Some politicians credited it with spawning an adjacent subdivision of affordable houses, ignoring the fact that the $75,000 homes were subsidized by taxpayers at more than $100,000 each.

The fact is, Dr. Perryman, a Rice University graduate based in Waco, has long held a reputation for providing numbers pleasing to whatever group hires him.

To his credit, he's not ideological about it. He has found the arts to be enormously important to the economy, and gambling would be great for our economy, as is the governor's economic development slush fund.

In 1995 the Wall Street Journal described him in a headline as "a Genius — for Self Promotion."

He denies he ever cooked his books, but was described as "the most bought economist in Texas" by an Austin City Council member after he predicted that environmental regulations would cost the city 131,000 permanent jobs. Many of them passed and, of course, Austin has withered up.

Still, I applaud the new study. I want to end illegal immigration — by making a lot more of it legal.

One reason is that I think immigrants have been great for the country and will continue to be.

My daughters have ancestors who immigrated from Asia about, we think, 10,000 years ago. And, among others, they have ancestors who came from England nearly 300 years ago and Ireland about 110 years ago.

Imagine what America would look like if we had limited the gene pool to the English.

The other reason I like immigrants is that I didn't make enough babies.

My parents had six children. My father referred to us as "the Protestants on the block."

The McLaughlins behind us had eight. The Foys next door had 14.

From those six children, my parents got six grandchildren. That's not enough to pay for our Social Security and Medicare.

So Perryman can throw around whatever numbers he wants. Six from six is the statistic that matters to me.

You can write to Rick Casey at P.O. Box 4260, Houston, TX 77210, or e-mail him at rick.casey@chron.com .