Wednesday OTA/Keep it at home

(Yeh, Wednesday’s Open Trackback Alliance post—link to this post and trackback. See more info below the post body.)

---

The “Keep it at home” in the post title is about our economy… and about our government’s failure to perform an essential function: guarding our border. But it’s not quite what you may think…

Here’s the narrow focus of this post: Illegal aliens not only make disproportional use of social services, as against most other segments of society, they pay little in the way of taxes in support of those services. And worse, many illegals don’t even let much of their income circulate here in the U.S. where it can benefit our economy. Instead, they send it home.

Surpassing oil and tourism, the estimated $20 billion in US dollars that Mexicans sent home last year is the mainstay of Mexico’s economy. When your main export is your citizens, your nation is in big trouble._1_

That $20 billion accounts for roughly one fifth of the Mexican economy’s gross revenues. Let that sink in: 20% of Mexico’s economy is money sent to relatives of people working here. Without that money, its economy would collapse and the corrupt and incompetent Mexican government would fall.

THAT’S what has Vicente Fox’s knickers in a twist.

I’d like some of that money to stay here.

Many “undocumented aliens”—because they are undocumented and their employers know they are conspiring with their workers to break the law—don’t even pay any fed taxes.

Let’s close some doors.

1.) Harsh penalties strictly enforced for those who employ illegal workers. no, harsher than you just imagined. MUCH harsher. I’m thinking hard labor in “intolerable” conditions.

2.) I don’t know how it’d be done, but make a way to send money out of the country harder. Perhaps tie sending mail to a foreign country to an ID. I’d sit still for it… and enjoy watching someone who wasn’t a citizen and was an illegal alien get nailed at the post office, of all places. (Yeh, yeh, probably get hit with the old “Use your ID to buy us some beer” scam. *sigh* Someone smarter than I can figure the details.) Punish—severely—banks, institutions and individuals who make it easy or conspire to actually engage in this low-level money laundering/dollar export… (I’m thinking nearly the level of the old Cheech n Chong skit, “Sign zee papers old man… ” level of punishment… )

3.) The FairTax. Yep, that’s right. If ALL federal taxes were collected every time a person made a purchase at retail, there’d be far fewer tax cheats—and darned near NO illegal aliens cheating on their taxes. And what would make it even better is that the FairTax bill has a provision for everyone to recieve a rebate on their taxes up to the amount of taxes that would be paid for essential living expenses up to the poverty line. But it’d only be paid to folks who belong here. Tough luck on undocumented aliens.

So, as jobs for illegals tended to dry up (cos those willing to give ’em jobs found new work breaking rocks, as it were); as the ability to support Mexico’s (well, and a number of other mostly Central American countries) economy abated; and as illegal aliens found themselves actually paying their fair share of taxes, I suspect much of the allure of being “undocumented immigrants” might well fade.

Then, if our weenie congresscritters would actually build real fences controlling ALL our land borders and get serious about interdicting sea passage by illegals, we’d see a different kind of immigrant. One that would follow the rules and seek LEGAL entry, learn our language (it’s English dammit!) and genuinely join the American melting pot.

But it will not happen if YOU do not get involved. Write and phone your own congresscritters. Phone the White House (yeh, and write too). Get with it. Or your grandchildren will either be living in Aztlan or under sharia law…

Oh, and as for poor Mexico’s economy collapsinbg around its ears when the tap’s turned off? Tough. The country is extraordinarily wealthy in resources. Its people are not, because it’s run by a kleptocracy. One that protects ITS borders vigorously against illegal immigration but wants to slough off workers who can’t find good jobs in a poorly-run country onto us… and drain us while neglecting its duties to its own citizens.

According to data from the CIA, 40% of the Mexican population lives below the poverty line. The current population is estimated to be 106,202,900 people and the labor force is estimated to be 34.73 million. Despite being rich in natural resources, the Mexican economy is highly dependent on the US economy. We buy 84% of all Mexican exports, compared to Canada that buys a mere 1.8%. “Per capita income is one-fourth that of the US; income distribution remains highly unequal.” That’s a diplomatic way of saying a handful of Mexican elites own most of everything._1_

A pox on ’em. Let ’em eat cake.

---

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.