Thread: Illegal Immigs or Public Employees:Who's the Bigger Problem?

Illegal Immigrants or Public Employees: Who’s the Bigger Problem?

by Bruce Bialosky
Monday, February 22, 2010

Recently I delivered a speech that reviewed the first year of the Obama Presidency. While I tried to cover all the relevant topics over the past 12 months, a friend who attended later wrote me to express surprise that I had not spoken about illegal immigration.

He stated that he felt it was the nation’s most critical issue, and wondered why the subject seems to have been put on the backburner by many Republicans. I replied with sympathy for his position, but ultimately I’ve come to the conclusion that the most critical issue facing America – and the one driving our budget problems at the local, state and federal level – is public employee unions and their related costs. The debate began.

There is no question that the issue of illegal immigration has multiple aspects to it, many of which give rise to significant costs to the taxpayers. First, there is the overarching fact that even though laws are clearly being broken, our government passively condones the illegalities with very little enforcement. Second, illegal immigrants generate enormous public expenses: Public hospitals are stretched by emergency rooms being flooded with illegal immigrants, our school systems are fiscally challenged to educate their children, and our prisons are disproportionally populated by “undocumentedâ€

There is a way to fix both problems. As with most rebellions, it requires sacrifice and hardship. It is not illegal and does not involve violence.
What would happen if millions of middle class taxpayers quit their jobs? Who would pay for the social benefits and salaries of the elite and illegals? It would be left up to the wealthy elites themselves.

I am not saying we should starve to save our nation. We can begin to put ourselves in a better position to survive low paying jobs. We make just enough money to avoid income taxes, yet still qualify for food stamps and welfare. Many illegal immigrants control income so they don't lose government support, why don't we?

Millions of Americans have lost jobs, retirement accounts and are struggling in the no mans land of too much income for government programs, not enough to survive. More of the same will come with the new policies being put in place by liberals. Let's take control of our destiny and force our government to downsize and eliminate costly social services.
Yes, it is scary to think of being more self reliant. It is scary to consider surviving without a steady paycheck, a nice home, 2 cars, and good schools for our kids. This is the new reality folks. Either we have to force fiscal responsibilty on our politicians and our population or we are doomed to government slavery to pay for everyone else.
The cycle of taxing the workers to pay the non-workers can not be sustained. If we are destined to crash, lets speed up the process and get it over with. A bloodless revolution is possible only enough patriots are willing to sacrifice. Do we still have it in US.

In 2009 there were approximately 15 million union workers in the US. They pay taxes with their wages, they buy health insurance (not all is for free), they pay their healthcare bills, car insurance, property insurance, food, housing costs, and property taxes to help pay the school expenses of their children.

We have 40 million illegals, who probably have over 100 million dependent anchors, spouses, various relatives. They require huge expenditures for criminal justice services, suppress activities of drug cartel and human smuggling operations, cost taxpayers for schooling of the 100 million + children by living many families to a property, do not have drivers' licenses or insurance but drive anyway, cause mayhem on the roads with a higher percentage of drunken driving, destroyed neighborhoods from overcrowding and properties filled with garbage, have bankrupted our hospitals and send their wages back to their home countries.

Who cares that 15 million US taxpayers and legal citizens work hard and have union status? Not me, good for them, they are honest taxpayers and good Americans. Maybe the CEO's of those globalist corporations have only several million annual salaries instead of tens of millions.

What I want out of my country, my neighborhood and my pocketbook are all the illegals, their offspring and other dependents.

You missed the Moose Ticks.

GAPATRIOT, not all American workers belong to unions. We also pay taxes, buy insurance, own homes, and try to give our kids a good education. The unions are getting out of control and pushing to have "right to work laws" repealed, along with card check.
I am anti-union, almost as much as anti illegal immigration.
When working for a small sign company in a new shopping mall in Houston, I learned about unions. Once a union member found out I worked for a non-union company, all the union guys stopped work. That was no problem until mall managers confronted us, blaming us for the unions not getting their work done. The mall could not afford delays, so guess who was forced to leave?
We had to go back after closing hours, hire a guard to protect our truck in the parking lot, and work thru the night to finish our job. Unions get too much power and make it hard for non-union business to survive. I wonder if all of us non-union taxpayers will end up bailing out your pensions and health plans?

Opinions expressed are those of the author

Even More on The Coming War Over Public-Sector Pensions
Nick Gillespie | February 21, 2010

Via the Washington Examiner comes news of a brewing showdown in Fairfax, Virginia, where the school system is looking for a whopping tax increase to pay for teacher retirements and benefits. Here's verbiage from the Fairfax County Taxpayers Association (FCTA), which is against that move:

"The FCTA asked why the school board is urging the supervisors to raise taxes by $81.9M although only $9M is needed to pay for next year's expected increase in student enrollment.

"The school superintendent acknowledged that the reason is the increased cost in employee benefits, especially pensions. According to the schools' proposed FY2011 budget, employee benefits costs are increasing by $98M, of which $71M is for pensions and another $15M is for retiree medical benefits.

"The school board has been less than straightforward with the community about this. During her opening remarks at the forum, school board chairman Kathy Smith talked about cuts to band and sports, and bigger class sizes, but never acknowledged that the cuts were being made to pay for increased benefits costs. School board members urged the audience to ask the supervisors to raise taxes. If taxes are not raised, then the board will cut band and sports and increase class size to make the pension payments."

Whole thing here.

Hard-fact time: Taxpayers everywhere are shelling out many, many, many more real dollars per student for public education than they were 30 years ago (with no clear improvements in outcomes [see this and this]). Indeed, inflation-adjusted costs per pupil have gone up over 200 percent since 1970, while student achievement is flat (at best). Can you think of any other part of your life (especially one in the private sector) where you are paying twice as much for the same freaking outcome? Say what you will about rising medical costs, but the pills that cure our ills nowadays are so much better...

As we've noted here, this is a story that is only going to gain in regularity as the gap between public-sector and private-sector compensation grows (public-sector already has a 70 percent advantage!) and as private-sector workers increasingly fund their own retirements via 401(k)s.

The basic bargain about public-sector work, hammered out decades ago in a very different world, is supposed to be: You give up status, upward possibility, and compensation now for job security and payoffs later in retirement. That has never really been true and is certainly less so now. Yes, public-sector jobs ofer more security than their private-sector counterparts, but compensation is also higher on average and the benefits, especially in retirement are gold-plated to the nines. That bargain, which is unsustainable economically, is going to hit the rocks. The only question is: Who is going to pay? Taxpayers or the public-sector workers?

Don't miss Reason's Feb. cover story about "how public servants became our masters." Just click on the image of the big boot there on the right.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/02/21/even- ... ing-war-ov

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