Have Sovereignty Defenders Forgotten Amnesty’s $2.6 Trillion Price Tag?
01/22/2013
A+
|
a-
Print Friendly and PDF

Is it just me, or is the amnesty amnesia cloaking device working at full power plus?

Nearly of the media opinion around the topic of immigration has been to urge the passage of a comprehensive amnesty for millions of lawbreakers. That’s expected, given the press’ ideology.

Meanwhile, there are several very strong arguments against mega amnesty, including the 23 million Americans un- or underemployed, the fact that rewarding lawbreakers will draw additional millions in the future and the damage to national sovereignty.

But what about the 2007 report from Robert Rector of Heritage.org that found a big amnesty giveaway would be incredibly expensive: Amnesty Will Cost U.S. Taxpayers at Least $2.6 Trillion.

Seriously, budget hawks rightly pillory the spendaholic President for his annual trillion-dollar overruns, but spending $2.6 trillion to give citizenship to 12 to 20 million border hoppers and visa overstayers is also monstrous and unacceptable.

In addition, the fact that many of the illegals have been here for years yet have prospered demonstrates that they don’t need a path to citizenship, nor do they care about anything but work permits.

The only person I’ve noticed bringing up the amnesty cost issue is Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach:

Kobach: Obama immigration proposal ‘out of touch’, Kansas City Star, January 14, 2013

President Obama must not be very serious about immigration reform because the proposal outlined over the weekend is out of touch with sentiments in the U.S. House and with the American public, said Kris Kobach, one of the nation’s leading anti-illegal immigration advocates and Kansas’ secretary of state. [. . .]

Kobach agrees with verifying the legal status of workers, but he said allowing a path to citizenship could add more than $2 trillion to the nation’s debt if illegal immigrants become eligible for Medicaid, Medicare and other benefits.

He acknowledged illegal immigrants would be paying taxes, but he said because many of them are low-skill workers it wouldn’t make up for the additional costs.

“You’re basically giving citizenship to people who will be a fiscal drag on the economy,” he said.

Print Friendly and PDF