More unreasonable expenses by US Govt.

[Trainwreck]

Visit here first:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/....ap/index.html

US Govt = US citizens

Why do they always try to hide this? to SOFTEN the blow?

1 billion of taxes dollars blown on this BS...

Obviously, I think this is HORRIBLE!

Whose going to send the US aide when we are broke?

>TW<

[DVaut1]

Illegal Immigrants and Payroll Taxes

The link above has an excerpt from the article, but you must pay to read it in its entirety in the NYT archives. Luckily, I found it posted elsewhere on the internet and copy and pasted it here; I bolded what I thought was relevant and my own points are below:

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By Eduardo Porter
The New York Times

Tuesday, April 05, 2005 - STOCKTON - Since illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States six years ago, Angel Martinez has done backbreaking work, harvesting asparagus, pruning grapevines and picking the ripe fruit. More recently, he has also washed trucks, often working as much as 70 hours a week, earning $8.50 to $12.75 an hour.

Not surprisingly, Martinez, 28, has not given much thought to Social Security's long-term financial problems. But Martinez _ who comes from the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico and hiked for two days through the desert to enter the United States near Tecate, some 20 miles east of Tijuana _ contributes more than most Americans to the solvency of the nation's public retirement system.

Last year, Martinez paid about $2,000 toward Social Security and $450 for Medicare through payroll taxes withheld from his wages like those of any other worker. Yet, unlike most Americans, who will receive some form of a public pension in retirement and will be eligible for Medicare as soon as they turn 65, Martinez is not entitled to any benefit.

He belongs to a big club. As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated 7 million or so illegal-immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.

While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: The money added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus _ the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it doles out in pension benefits.

Illegal immigration, Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New York University, noted sardonically, could provide "the fastest way to shore up the long-term finances of Social Security."

It is impossible to know exactly how many illegal-immigrant workers pay taxes. But, according to specialists, most of them do. Since 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act set penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, most such workers have been forced to buy fake IDs to get jobs.

Available for about $150 on street corners in just about any immigrant neighborhood in California, a typical fake ID package includes a green card and a Social Security card. It provides cover for employers, who, if asked, can plausibly assert that they believe all their workers are legal. But it also means workers must be paid by the book _ payroll tax deductions and all.

IRCA, as the immigration act is known, did little to deter employers from hiring illegal immigrants or to discourage them from working. But for Social Security's finances, it was a great piece of legislation.

Starting in the late 1980s, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect _ sometimes simply fictitious _ Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what is called the "earnings suspense file" in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.

The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990s, 2“ times the amount of the 1980s.

In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.

In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, 9 million W-2s with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages.

Social Security officials do not know what fraction of the suspense file corresponds to the earnings of illegal immigrants. But they suspect that the portion is significant.

"Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes," said Stephen C. Goss, Social Security's chief actuary, using the agency's term for illegal immigration.

Immigration also helps Social Security's finances because new immigrants tend to be of working age and contribute more than they take from the system. A simulation by Social Security's actuaries found that, if net immigration ran at 1.3 million a year instead of the 900,000 in their central assumption, the system's 75-year funding gap would narrow to 1.67 percent of total payroll, from 1.92 percent _ savings that come out to half a trillion dollars, valued in today's money.

Illegal immigrants help even more because they will never collect benefits. According to Goss, without the flow of payroll taxes from wages in the suspense file, the system's long-term funding hole over 75 years would be 10 percent deeper.

Yet to immigrants, the lack of retirement benefits is just part of the package of hardship they took on when they decided to make the trek north. Tying vines in a vineyard some 30 miles north of Stockton, Florencio Tapia, 20, from Guerrero, along Mexico's Pacific coast, has no idea what the money being withheld from his paycheck is for. "I haven't asked," Tapia said.

For illegal immigrants, Social Security numbers are simply a tool needed to work on this side of the border. Retirement does not enter the picture.

"There will be a moment when I won't be able to continue working," Martinez acknowledges. "But that's many years off." Mario Avalos, a naturalized Nicaraguan immigrant who prepares income-tax returns for many workers in the area, including immigrants without legal papers, observes that many older workers return home to Mexico. "Among my clients," he said, "I can't recall anybody over 60 without papers.

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Now, onto my points:

Illegal immigrants are paying payroll taxes; however we might feel about illegal immigration, there's seems to be some agreement that they're paying a lot into SS/Medicare; so if the criticism is that this legislation will place a heavy burden on the federal budget, I suspect that criticism fails upon scrutiny.

[PITTM]

why the [censored] would they bill the federal government? hospitals should just go out and find people to treat and then charge it to the government, that would be very profitable and nonsensical for them also.

rj

[Trainwreck]

BUT you forget all the side effects of them taking jobs away from legitimate citizens and lowering the pay scales.

How about the illegals that aren't on pay rolls?

Don't be naive, an overall upside?, and certainly don't believe ANY figures the govt gives, they still think the IRAQ war is going well.

Corps just want to continue their swindling ways, you don't make billions in profit being fair, *loud cough* oil companies and operating systems creators, just two name two obvious abusers.

What I think is really criminal is MAJOR Corps getting deals so they can lower or avoid paying taxes, the system is broke, thanks a lot ya greedy scumbags, disguising yourselves as corps. It's sick... and never ending...

Capitalism sucks for the majority, but of course who has the power... Only a well placed NUKE will repair this damage.

>TW<

[DVaut1]

[ QUOTE ]
BUT you forget all the side effects of them taking jobs away from legitimate citizens and lowering the pay scales.

[/ QUOTE ]

You didn't mention that in your OP. You criticized the legislation's effect on the budget.

[ QUOTE ]
How about the illegals that aren't on pay rolls?

[/ QUOTE ]

Apparently, a majority of them are; I suppose some solution should be found for the others.

[ QUOTE ]
Don't be naive, an overall upside?,

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't make a claim about an overall upside; just that this legislation's effect on the federal budget was outweighed by the contributions made by illegal immigrants in payroll taxes.

[ QUOTE ]
and certainly don't believe ANY figures the govt gives, they still think the IRAQ war is going well.


[/ QUOTE ]

If you feel the government is out to pull the wool over our eyes anyway, this debate is meaningless to begin with and I'm not sure why you made your OP.

[ QUOTE ]
Corps just want to continue their swindling ways, you don't make billions in profit being fair, *loud cough* oil companies and operating systems creators, just two name two obvious abusers.

[/ QUOTE ]

So what exactly does it have to do with the legislation you brought up in the OP?

[ QUOTE ]
What I think is really criminal is MAJOR Corps getting deals so they can lower or avoid paying taxes, the system is broke, thanks a lot ya greedy scumbags, disguising yourselves as corps. It's sick... and never ending...

Capitalism sucks for the majority, but of course who has the power... Only a well placed NUKE will repair this damage.

[/ QUOTE ]

Awesome. Can't even respond to that one.

[sameoldsht]

If the gov't spent that money on securing the border effectively, we wouldn't have so many illegal aliens to treat to begin with.

[Trainwreck]

BINGO!

>TW<