Posted on 07/21/2006 8:13:53 PM PDT by K-oneTexas
Illegal Dirty Little Secrets about Social Security By Herman Cain
There are two dirty little secrets behind the debate over the illegal alien issue that even the advocates of securing the borders first have failed to discuss. The first secret is that the estimated twelve to twenty million aliens living and working illegally in the United States have to commit identity theft to secure employment. The second secret is that without illegals' payroll tax contributions, filed under stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers, the Social Security system would collapse years earlier than estimated.
Hard to believe, here are the facts.
The birth of the connection between illegal aliens, identity theft and the Social Security system began in 1986. That year Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which required workers to show a Social Security card to obtain employment. IRCA also made it illegal to knowingly hire undocumented workers. The consequence of IRCA is that millions of stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers have been used in the past twenty years. IRCA did nothing to curb illegal aliens from crossing our borders to find work, or to end employers' demand for their labor.
A 2006 General Accountability Office study reports that the Social Security Administration maintains a database called the Earnings Suspense File (ESF) to track fraudulent use of Social Security numbers. When an employer files payroll taxes for an employee, and the employee's name and Social Security number do not match or the number does not exist in Social Security's records, the unmatched or fraudulent number is recorded in the ESF. Though estimates of illegal aliens present in the U.S. range from twelve to twenty million, as of November 2004 the ESF contained over 246 million records.
The GAO also reports that forty-three percent of employers that file payroll taxes on stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers represent just five industries. Further, 8,900 employers, .2 percent of all employers with reports in the ESF database, have submitted over thirty percent of the ESF's total records.
According to a 2005 report by MSNBC technology correspondent Bob Sullivan, the ESF represents $420 billion in payroll tax contributions. Illegal aliens who work under stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers will never receive Social Security benefits, so the hundreds of billions of dollars they contribute represent what Sullivan rightly calls "essentially free money to the system." Eduardo Porter reported in the New York Times that payroll taxes from illegal aliens represent approximately ten percent of the so-called Social Security surplus.
Enforcement of labor and immigration law is further hamstrung by a byzantine bureaucratic nightmare constructed by Congress in an effort ironically designed to protect privacy. Under current law, the SSA is barred from sharing information in the EFS with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) because it contains taxpayer records. Congress has enabled massive invasion of our privacy by encouraging identity theft and not allowing DHS to effectively investigate employers and employees suspected of labor and immigration law infractions. Even though the EFS contains 246 million records of stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers, in 2004 DHS only initiated 5,400 investigations of employers or workers suspected of breaking labor or immigration laws.
Illegal aliens represent cheap labor for employers and billions of dollars to the government to temporarily prop up the failing Social Security system. Congrtess is not only doing nothing to restructure Social Security, but its wink-and-nod policy toward illegal aliens and their employers encourages massive identity theft and ruined financial standing for millions of Americans.
Common sense solutions exist, but the political will to enact them is missing. First, Congress must allow DHS access to the ESF files. The ESF files would literally provide DHS the roadmap to employers and workers guilty of breaking labor and immigration laws. It’s not just law enforcement, it’s a matter of national security.
Second, Congress must increase and enforce penalties on employers of illegal aliens. Most employers want to obey the law, but the laws have to be enforced.
Third, we must secure our borders. That does not mean sending a few thousand members of the National Guard to assist border patrol agents. We must also secure the most porous areas of the border with whatever means necessary, or legal American citizens will continue to fall prey to massive identity theft.
Illegal aliens present a challenge to national security, and a false sense of temporary security to our failing Social Security system. Failure to fix the problem just makes the problem worse.
That’s not a secret. It’s common sense.
Thanks for not excerpting the article.
I wonder how many prosecutions have happened using this information.
L
If anyone would like to be added to this ping list let me know.
John Linder in the House(HR25) & Saxby Chambliss Senate(S25) offer a comprehensive bill to kill all federal income, SS/Medicare payroll, and gift/estate taxes outright replacing them with with a national retail sales tax administered by the states.
H.R.25,S.25
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.Refer for additional information:
I don't know. But how ever many it is, it's not enough.
If the illegal alien is here to pay for the citizen's retirement, that must mean he is an identity thief. Because that's the only way he could be contributing the Social Security. Therefore, if he's paying for the guy's retirement, it's only karma, since the guy probably already paid for the illegal alien's kids to go to school and college, for the illegal alien's family to get free medical care and overburden our hospitals for every dang hangnail, for the illegal alien to claim FDIC and get the unearned income tax credit and any number of other benefits that citizens have subsidized for him.
So this cartoon sucks, imho. Boo bloody hoo for the illegal alien. In my book, he's come out way ahead.
She's made identity theft a 'top priority' of her tenure in office. I'm going to ask her lackey exactly how many illegal aliens she's charged under the new laws she's demanded the Illinois Legislature pass.
I really wish we had video phones because I'm pretty sure it'd be lots of fun to watch her head explode.
L
*BUMP*!
none
Golly !!!...Where to begin????
I took the cartoon THIS WAY !!!
The people who are trying to SELL this ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, IMHO, are no different than some advertising agency trying to create a "hook" , or "catch phrase", to sell their "product", (ie, Coke is IT, or Nike = "Just Do It !!".
What I took from the cartoon, is NOT that the elderly gentleman "AGREES" with the "saying" on the shirt.
He is still isn't BUYING the "idea" or "product"(ie "Guest Worker Program"), he's just saying that the latest attempt at the "marketing" of it using THAT phrase, isn't as LAME as the first.
Sorry if pookie18's cartoon upset you by my posting it, but you can bet YOU WILL HEAR THAT SAYING USED A LOT before this mess gets "straightened out", to try and "sell"
the idea to the American public.
Again, I'm sorry if it made you upset.
"Illegal aliens who work under stolen or fraudulent Social Security numbers will never receive Social Security benefits,..."
don't bet your retirement on that
Mr. Cain is a little slow, as both of these subjects have been discussed for years, right here on FR.
Not upset at all -- just puzzled about posting the cartoon. I keep hearing that garbage about how they are benefitting all us rubes and I'm sick of it. You know, the saving-for-our-old-age that we Americans won't do (because it gets harder and harder with all the taxes we have to pay to subsidize the illegal aliens' comfort and, which I forgot to mention, all the money they so "generously" send home). Ah, you see, I'm off to the races again.
As you were. :-)
OK Geez, When are we gonna see that bill passed? I suspect never, as they got a free hand at the greatest theft ever committed in the history of mankind with the present tax system.
Kinda hard to stop successful thief/thieves from stealing.
Not neccesarily---I had an employee who gave me a fictitious SS number which I did not find out about until 3 years into his employment with me. It wasn't a number that belonged to someone else, it was a number he or the forgerer made up. I always wondered what happened to the money he--and I--contributed
Excuse me, but I'm a boomer who has worked consistently throughout my life, from the age of 15 1/2 (when I was legally allowed to) onward. I am now 58. My spouse and I have traveled little and we have a 19-sq-ft home, a 5 year old car and a 10 year old car (both bought used). I have paid two children's way through college by working two jobs and not taking taxpayer-subsidized loans, and now, I am still working, harder than ever (50-hr week minimum)and I don't anticipate retiring until I'm pushed out of the company I work for. I do not make anywhere near a 6 figure salary, and I live in So Cal, so am not flush with cash; every month is a balancing act, since we still have a mortgage. So we have some modest life insurance to make sure if one of us dies, the other is not out on the street and dependent on the govt, and we have started l-t care insurance to make sure we never have to depend on the state if we become incapacitated. So I'd say we were working, pretty responsible about keeping ourself from burdening the younger generation (who, we observe, think that clubbing every night and paying $15 to park and $12 a drink and never saving two nickels to rub together is A-OK). We do not count on having Social Security, even though we have paid into it our whole lives and will never live to collect even as much as we put in, never mind any interest.
So please spare me about how the boomers are so selfish. Many are very self-absorbed, but everyone I know has at least planned to be self sufficient unto death.
From my observation, it is the well-heeled seniors who have been in at the ground floor, paid $20K for a house now worth $2 million, have unlimited gold-plated Medicare at taxpayer expense, lots of stocks and bonds that have appreciated over the years, and still want us "selfish" boomers still slogging away to pay for their drugs, when they spend more on restaurant than prescriptions per year anyway, according to the stats. Talk about entitlement. The over 70s crowd is the wealthiest demographic in the country, and it's never enough.
It presents an interesting scenario. A presidential order would have to occur (because congress isn't going to pass a open door to SS for illegals)...and half-sized bucket you currently have would be quart-sized...thus the disaster of SS running out of money would finally occur.
But on the other side of the coin...currently when these illegals contribute cash to the SS bucket...it just lays there....never to be used, and the Feds know that. So its an extra cushion sitting there for us to use.
We all need to face facts here. The minority in this country is finally shifting...it will not be blacks as the minority...it will be Latinos. And in the way that blacks and democrats used each other for political purposes...the fear for Republicans is that Latinos and Democrats will use each other. When you get down to Latinos objectives though...they are a conservitive group, connected to some degree to the Catholic church, and believing in the American dream....which makes their cause worthly of the Republican party. They will become a major force in state politics in both Texas and California...which are big electoral states. My guess is that either Bush or the next Republican president will waiver all the illegals...thus triggering the SS mess. I'm already betting on that.
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