They also contribute significantly more to the federal government in taxes than they use.
Link?
DO IMMIGRANTS COST THE GOVERNMENT MORE THAN THEY CONTRIBUTE IN TAXES?
Research into this subject reveals a consensus: over time, immigrants and their descendants collectively provide more to the federal government in taxes than they receive in benefits. For example, a report by the National Academy of Sciences found that a typical immigrant and his or her descendants will pay an estimated $80,000 (in 1996 dollars) more in taxes than they will receive in combined local, state, and federal benefits over their lifetimes. [8]
Perhaps the myth that immigrants are costly to American taxpayers stems from the fact that, at the state and local level, immigrants use more in services than they pay in local taxes (this is true for the vast majority of native citizens as well). The National Academy of Sciences study found that the average immigrant imposes a net lifetime fiscal cost on state and local governments of $25,000, attributable to their use of schools, roads, and so on. Those with very low levels of education and skill cost states and localities the most, particularly in health care outlays for emergency room and other hospital services. However, most of the taxes that immigrants pay, including Social Security contributions, go to the federal government, and these payments are well in excess of federal benefits received. [9] On balance, immigrants pay substantially more than they receive from all levels of government combined. [10]
Of particular importance is the value of immigration to the future financial strength of the Social Security and Medicare systems. In the absence of immigration, the U.S. workforce is projected to grow very slowly—much more slowly than the size of the retired population as the Baby Boom generation reaches its golden years. Because immigrants add to the supply of younger workers who contribute payroll taxes that finance the Social Security and Medicare system, they are an important reason why forecasts show that the programs will be able to pay benefits in full until 2042 for Social Security and 2019 for Medicare’s hospital insurance program. [11] The projections of Social Security’s trustees show that higher levels of immigration in the future will improve the long-term financial condition of Social Security, while lower levels will have the opposite effect. The higher fertility levels of immigrants also slows the rate at which the average age of the overall population will rise, keeping more people on the contribution side of the equation.
[8] National Research Council, The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration, ed. James P. Smith and Barry Edmonston (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 1997), p. 337.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees, “Status of the Social and Medicare Programs,” March 2004, available online at www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/trsummary.html.
http://www.immigrationline.org/publications.asp?pubid=491
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Illegal immigrants contribute to the economy whenever they pay sales tax and, indirectly through rent payments, real estate taxes.
Also, those who use false Social Security numbers pay taxes into the system they don't get back, since people here illegally aren't eligible to receive Social Security payments. In 2003 alone, the government received Social Security taxes on $57.8 billion from wage reports that couldn't be matched to the person filing.
Illegal immigrants are excluded from most federal and state entitlements such as subsidized housing or food stamps, and a 2007 congressional report found they appear to contribute more than they use in services. But the money they contribute often goes to federal and state coffers, while many services they benefit from, such as health and law enforcement, come out of local government budgets.
Laura Wides-Munoz, Miami / Jacques Billeaud, Phoenix / Suzanne Gamboa, Washington - Associated Press Writers
http://www.dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=74&subsectionID=589&articleID=58322
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The fact that illegal immigrants pay taxes at all will come as news to many Americans. A stunning two-thirds of illegal immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes. Yet, nativists like Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., have popularized the notion that illegal aliens are a colossal drain on the nation's hospitals, schools and welfare programs — consuming services that they don't pay for.
In reality, the 1996 welfare reform bill disqualified illegal immigrants from nearly all means-tested government programs including food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid and Medicare-funded hospitalization. The only services that illegals can still get are emergency medical care and K-12 education.
But, immigrants aren't flocking to the United States to mooch off the government. According to a study by the Urban Institute, the 1996 welfare reform effort dramatically reduced the use of welfare by undocumented immigrant households, exactly as intended. And another vital thing happened in 1996: the Internal Revenue Service began issuing identification numbers to enable illegal immigrants who don't have Social Security numbers to file taxes.
One might have imagined that those fearing deportation or confronting the prospect of paying for their safety net through their own meager wages would take a pass on the IRS' scheme. Not so. Close to 8 million of the 12 million or so illegal aliens in the country today file personal income taxes using these numbers, contributing billions to federal coffers. No doubt they hope that this will one day help them acquire legal status — a plaintive expression of their desire to play by the rules and come out of the shadows.
What's more, aliens who are not self-employed have Social Security and Medicare taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks. Since undocumented workers have only fake numbers, they'll never be able to collect the benefits these taxes are meant to pay for. Last year, the revenues from these fake numbers — that the Social Security administration stashes in the "earnings suspense file" — added up to 10 percent of the Social Security surplus. The file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year.
Beyond federal taxes, all illegals automatically pay state sales taxes that contribute toward the upkeep of public facilities such as roads that they use, and property taxes through their rent that contribute toward the schooling of their children. The non-partisan National Research Council found that when the taxes paid by the children of low-skilled immigrant families, most of whom are illegal — are factored in, they contribute on average $80,000 more to federal coffers than they consume.
Shikha Dalmia is a senior analyst at Reason Foundation, a free-market think tank.
http://reason.org/news/show/122411.html
I grant those in authority positions the respect the position calls for. Until they foul it up, that is.
Then we have no dispute on that issue, because I agree.
My wife is an immigrant and comes from a less than affluent upbringing. Know what I've found? Money does not make someone happy. Being born an American is not a guarantee of anything. You can be the poorest person in the world and be among the happiest.
Certainly, money is no guarantee of happiness, and living in the US is no guarantee of affluence. But that's not really the point, is it? Money offers greater opportunities to provide for your family's health, safety, welfare, and prospects for the future though education and other factors. And living in the US offers greater opportunities in those areas than say, living in Mexico or Haiti, wouldn't you agree?
That Americans wouldn't take labor jobs is preposterous.
Will they take them for low pay, long hours, and little to no benefits?
HOW MUCH DO IMMIGRANTS CONTRIBUTE TO THE OVERALL ECONOMY?
A November/December 2003 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas states:
The pace of recent U.S. economic growth would have been impossible without immigration. Since 1990, immigrants have contributed to job growth in three main ways: They fill an increasing share of jobs overall, they take jobs in labor-scarce regions, and they fill the types of jobs that native workers often shun. The foreign-born make up only 11.3 percent of the U.S. population and 14 percent of the labor force. But amazingly, the flow of foreign-born is so large that immigrants currently account for a larger share of labor force growth than natives. [See Figure 2.] [16]
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, “U.S. Immigration and Economic Growth: Putting Policy on Hold,” Southwest Economy Issue 6, November/December 2003, available online at www.dallasfed.org/research/swe/2003/swe0306a.html (derived from data from the U.S. Census Bureau).
Because about a third of immigrants have not finished high school, as compared with 13 percent of native workers, they disproportionately fill low-skill, blue-collar jobs. [17] Figure 3 shows the portion of employment growth in each job category attributed to foreign-born workers from 1996 to 2000. Immigrants accounted for as much as half the growth in categories such as administrative support and services. The more than sixfold increase in the laborer category means that as immigrants entered these occupations, native workers exited. [18]
Source: Abraham T. Mosisa, “The Role of Foreign-born Workers in the U.S. Economy," Monthly Labor Review, May 2002, pp. 4–14
Forecasts by the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate that between 2000 and 2010, more than 33 million new job openings that require only little or moderate training will be created in the United States (see Table 1). That constitutes 58 percent of all projected new jobs over that period. Most of that work is in restaurants, construction, retail, trucking, hospital care, and other areas where immigrants already established themselves. [19] In manual labor jobs, about 1.1 million new lower-skilled immigrants have become employed since 1994 as the native-born population attracted to such jobs has declined from 9 million to 7.6 million. [20] Moreover, a study by the National Association of Manufacturers and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu concluded that immigration will be the primary source for filling anticipated shortages in skilled labor over the next twenty years. [21]
[16] Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, “U.S. Immigration and Economic Growth: Putting Policy on Hold,” Southwest Economy Issue 6, November available online at www.dallasfed.org/research/swe/2003/swe0306a.html.
[17] Ibid
[18] Ibid
[19] Daniel E. Hecker, “Occupational Employment Projections to 2010,” Monthly Labor Review, November 2001.
[20] “Summary of Findings,” The American Workplace: Building America’s Workforce for the 21st Century (Washington, D.C.: Employment Policy Foundation, 2001).
[21] The National Association of Manufacturers, the Manufacturing Institute, and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, “Keeping America Competitive: How a Talent Shortage Threatens U.S. Manufacturing,” New York, N.Y., April 21, 200., p. iii.
And most illegal aliens I've known are sending their money home instead of investing it here. I've known plenty. Please provide your evidence that IA's pay more in taxes than the cost in services. And they've stolen any legitimate social security #'s they do submit.
It's in the links I provided for
Gertch above.
What a waste of a good topic this attack pack mentality creates.
What contribution to the topic does this comment make? If there's a specific issue you'd like to address or if you'd like to defend his position, by all means do so.
It's a huge contribution, if people would realize we can have productive conversations here.
Seems to me you're skirting the rules against political discussion here and for some reason, it's tolerated. Illegal immigration is a hot-button political issue and should be discussed in the proper forum. Your view, whether you want to admit it, is a political expression.
No one reads the stickies. 
There has been plenty of productive discussion in this thread,
Gertch (even
TLS agreed), and it's perfectly acceptable to discuss these "hot-button political issues" in Miscellaneous again,
RR, so let's try to stop focusing on the other posters and instead deal with the issues at hand, please.
.
