There was email hell to pay in response to the last column: Count. Think. Choose. Readers were outraged either by my suggested fixes for the invasion of illegal immigrants, such as no citizenship, or by my “scapegoating” of illegals for some of California’s budget and social woes. As to the budget question, each illegal in California adds a dollar tax burden on the State treasury in the amount of $1,174 for each native-born household. Source? National Research Council; 1997. You guess the updated amount nearly 7 years later. The fact is that illegals pay no income tax and their employers, whether a business or you, hiring a day worker to clean your house, pay no employer taxes. The government’s budget deprived is thus deprived of income tax revenue of around 20% and the employer’s share, another 10% or more. Employers of illegal workers are subsidized by non-employers of illegal workers. It’s a reverse Robin Hood case where the rich steal from the poor. Reverse or not, it’s still stealing, still illegal and still wrong. I have a penchant for quantitative information about illegal immigration. Here’s one for you: By 2010, at the current rate, the United States will be home to over 45 million immigrants, more than half of whom are here illegally. HILLARY - I There is an unprintable word for Mrs. Clinton. She displayed her tasteless, classless self recently when she took a pr jaunt to Iraq. While there she famously encouraged the troops by saying the country was behind them but not behind the President’s policies. Neat. It’s okay for you guys can die here; we’re behind you but remember, you’re dying for nothing. She didn’t even wait to return to Washington; she said that while still in Iraq. Her solution was to turn it all over to the United nations; let it manage Iraq. Some solution. The U.N. is morally bankrupt and, without the United States, financially bankrupt as well. Its “peacekeeping forces” are filled with the military dregs of corrupt governments. These “peacekeepers” rob and rape wherever they are sent; they never resolve a problem but they do exacerbate them. On second thought, it is a perfectly Clintonian solution: those are their kind of people. HILLARY - II On the other hand, Mrs. Clinton is a hawk on Iraq. She has displayed a consistent position that the action taken was the correct action even while she slams the President et al for their planning or lack thereof. We report; you decide. JOHN KERRY - HERO OF VIETNAM By this time, virtually everyone breathing in these United States is aware that Sen. John Kerry is a “Viet Nam war hero”. He certainly had some bad luck and thereby is a member of the Purple Heart organization; he surely exhibited courage and thereby earned a Bronze Star and a Silver Star. On that record, then, Kerry asserts a unique aphorism: I fought, therefore, I can lead or, perhaps: I fought, therefore I should lead. On the basis of either premise, Kerry would have had to endorse Bob Dole over Bill Clinton which, of course, he did not do. Having fought nobly in a swamp in Vietnam is testimony to much of a man’s character, of his courage, of his survival instinct. It is not evidence of an ability to lead or to think more clearly about national security or anything else.
As you may know, the California State Legislature, under former Governor Gray Davis (where is he these days?), passed into law the privilege of a driver’s license for illegal immigrants. That law was passed in the past few months as a sop to the Hispanic population of California so as to encourage that bloc to vote for Gray over Arnold. It failed but was still law. Within days of Arnold’s inauguration, the pusillanimous legislature voted almost unanimously to repeal. Some Hispanic groups are running around screaming racism and the usual boring, meaningless epithets. Who cares? Not most Hispanics who tended to vote for Arnold and who generally disapprove of illegals having driver’s licenses. Interestingly, Hispanics aren’t crazy about too many more illegals. It’s a version of up the drawbridge; I’m safe. They know the jobs the illegals are after are, in many cases, theirs.
It’s awfully nice to be right at least once in a while. See above and then see Ozymandias Redux in our Archives. |
