Posted on 12/11/2003 7:55:33 PM PST by VU4G10
The prospect of millions of Mexicans receiving United States Social Security checks is moving closer to reality.
The Gannett News Service reports U.S. and Mexican officials are discussing a "totalization" agreement that would transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in payments south of the border. The plan would allow documented and undocumented immigrants to return home but still collect U.S. benefits.
WorldNetDaily reported the idea to merge both countries' Social Security systems was pushed late last year by Mexican President Vincente Fox as payback from President George W. Bush for failing to secure major new immigration reforms beneficial to Mexico City.
"When the legalization talks began going nowhere, the Mexicans began focusing on this," Maria Blanco, national senior counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, told the Washington Post.
Excerpts from a U.S. Social Security Administration memo dated December 2002 said the agreement "is expected to move forward at an accelerated pace."
The pact is the latest and largest attempt by Washington and Mexico City to ensure that people from one country working in another aren't taxed twice for Social Security benefits. In the first year alone, the agreement is expected to trigger 37,000 claims from Mexicans working in the U.S. legally who paid Social Security taxes but haven't been able to claim their checks, said the memo, prepared by Ted Girdner, the Social Security Administration's assistant associate commissioner for international operations.
Supporters say the proposal would improve the daily lives of Mexican citizens, many of whom are still trapped in poverty a decade after the North American Free Trade Agreement promised prosperity to the nation's 103.4 million people.
"Let's be honest, there are millions of Mexican immigrants contributing to the Social Security system and the U.S. economy," Katherine Culliton, an attorney with the Washington, D.C., office of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, told Gannett. "It's only fair they get back a benefit they deserve that will keep them from dying in poverty."
Critics, as well as some on the Bush administration economic team, worry that adding more beneficiaries would burden an already ailing system, just as American baby boomers begin to retire.
Currently, around 94,000 beneficiaries living abroad have been brought into the U.S. system under the auspices of about 20 international treaties designed to help Americans sent abroad by their employers signed since 1977. The accords are mostly with European countries, but also include Canada and South Korea.
Of the $408 billion distributed in Social Security benefits in 2001, according to Gannett, the federal government paid $173 million to about 89,000 foreigners living abroad.
Opponents contend the number of Mexican beneficiaries added to the fold would dwarf the total numbers from the 20 other countries. One estimate puts the number of Mexicans coming into the system at around 164,000 in the first five years.
Social Security Administration officials estimate about 50,000 Mexicans would collect $78 million in the first year of a U.S.-Mexican agreement. By 2050, the number is predicted to swell to 300,000 Mexicans collecting $650 million in benefits a year.
But that number doesn't include the potentially eligible, undocumented Mexican immigrants – numbering about 5 million, according to federal estimates – a recent General Accounting Office report pointed out.
Accounting for illegals, the agreement could cost U.S. taxpayers $750 million within five years of implementation.
Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, says if Mexicans receive the $8,100 in benefits that Mexican-born retirees in the U.S. currently get, the total expenditure for the program will easily surpass $1 billion annually.
Beyond the cost, Republican lawmakers worry the proposal will fuel further illegal immigration.
"Talk about an incentive for illegal immigration," Gannett quotes Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, as saying. "How many more would break the law to come to this country if promised U.S. government paychecks for life?"
Any "totalization" agreement ultimately reached must be approved by Congress.
"Let's be honest, there are millions of Mexican immigrants contributing to the Social Security system...Katherine Culliton, an attorney...told Gannett."
"Oh really, Katherine?"
"Prove it. They're undocumented! There isn't a single way you can even begin to back up that asinine statement."
"If they don't have SS numbers then they don't pay into the system!" -- Bloody Sam Roberts
That's your post that I was responding to.
This attorney is speaking of course, about the millions of legal immigrants who continue to contribute, as all working legal immigrants do, into the SS fund.
You assumed that every immigrant she was talking about is an illegal, otherwise, why would you have made a comment about them not having SS numbers?
By the way, illegals pay into the system, they do it by using someone else's SS number when they get a job. But sine they are here illegally, and not using their own number, it's impossible for them to collect.
Well, whose money is it exactly?
An individual performed a job for which he was paid by an employer, and the government took part of it from him.
The reasoning behind the government taking money from you via SS deductions, is that there is a "kitty" being set up for you which will be available at the time of your retirement.
If the government does not carry out their duty in paying the people from whom they took money at the time of their retirement, it would be theft.
I'm not in favor of the government stealing money from people's paychecks, are you?
Oh, I do it all the time. I have a hair trigger on my keyboard.
Lazamataz isn't the only one who's been "Proudly posting without reading the article since 1999".
But, Luis, the Government Accounting Office, our official watch dog bureau that seems to have more integrity and common sense than most politically controlled bureaucrats, does not think it is much ado about nothing.
...SSA took no technical staff on this visit to assess system controls or data integrity processes. In effect, SSA only briefly observed the operations of the Mexican social security program. Moreover, SSA did not document its efforts or perform any additional analyses then, or at a later time, to assess the integrity of Mexico's social security data and the controls over that data. In particular, SSA officials provided no evidence they examined key elements of Mexico's program such as its controls over the posting of earnings and its processes for obtaining key birth and death information for Mexican citizens. Nor did SSA evaluate how access to Mexican data and records is controlled and monitored to prevent unauthorized use or whether internal and external audit functions exist to evaluate operations...
I'm sure there are fine, wonderful citizens of Mexico, Luis, that lead exemplary lives. I'm just as sure they don't work in Mexico's government bureaucracy.
That the SSA would be willing to give what amounts to the keys to our social security money vault to a foriegn government with a tradition steeped in corruption, incompetence and sheer criminality is beyond belief.
It takes very little imagination to picture the guy who dreamt up the idea of those matricula id's to have another brainstorm that results in him creating an army of imaginary Mexicans, all armed with the necessary documentation required to collect for him and his cronies, on both sides of the border, a pension paid for by US taxpayers.
My fantasy is some day every eligible citizen will decide to take part in the peaceful revolutions that come around every two years and vote the bums out of office and the bureaucrats all take early retirement...
No more incumbents.
Anywhere.
How does someone else's money, taken from their paychecks by the government, become YOUR Social Security money?
Incredibly ignorant, unfounded statement.
Bring that brush over to my house, I have the side of a barn that requires painting.
Maybe your right. After looking further into the subject of Mexican corruption I just might change that statement to "I'm just as sure they just don't work in Mexico's government bureaucracy."
And here's why, http://www.mexconnect.com
Perhaps Dr. Ilya Adler can help you see that your barn is in need of more work than a coat of paint.
Here's the complete statement without your elipses. Try reading it a second time to understand my meaning.
"That the SSA would be willing to give what amounts to the keys to our social security money vault to a foriegn government with a tradition steeped in corruption, incompetence and sheer criminality is beyond belief."
Hint: Regardless of who is paying into the US SSA, it is still our vault that is being accessed by a foriegn government known and recognized the world over as rooted in corruption and criminality.
That's BS, we have the keys, and we decide who qualifies.
Now, I'll ask you again, how did their money become YOUR money?
Get a grip, Luis. Read the GAO report. Assimilate fact.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03993.pdf
Now, I'll ask you again, how did their money become YOUR money?
I am not compelled to answer a question based on your distorted insistence to take what I said out of context.
If that's all you got, I suggest you get started on that barn.
If JUST a million Mexicans were paided $500 dollars a month each (half of a what a average ammount is) it will cost US taxpayers $6,000,000,000 billion dollars a year.
And that is just a low-ball figure, if 5 million Mexicans were paid $1000 a month each, it will cost us taxpayers $60,000,000 billion a year.
We cannot afford that and since the politicans and their useful idiots don't care, this country is heading straight into an armed revolution.
The level of ignorance on this forum is rising by the hour.
Here's one more figure for you, if one gazillion Mexicans were paid one billion dollars a week, that would be one hundred thousand million megaprillions a year of taxpayer's money.
Idiots...
All blacks are _____.
All Polacks are _____.
All Chinese are _____.
Fill in the blanks as you always do.
A million times, what payment per month, times 12 months equals the rough ammount per year it will cost taxpayers.
But I doubt someone like you even understands basic math.
"That the SSA would be willing to give what amounts to the keys to our social security money vault to a foreign government with a tradition steeped in corruption, incompetence and sheer criminality is beyond belief."
It's even more ignorant posted in its entirety.
What the hell is that giving the keys to the vault crap?
The only thing mentioned in the report you supplied a link to, is that the GAO wants some sort of system set in place to track recipients more efficiently in Mexico; you don't understand what you read!
And my question still stands...how did the money that these people pay into the system become "our money"?
It's their money!
Just like the money that I am "voluntarily" depositing into the SSA coffers is MY money, not OUR money.
Here's a heads up...whoever posted the article altered the headline.
Now, for a dose of reality:
"The cost of a totalization agreement with Mexico is highly uncertain. In March 2003, the Office of the Chief Actuary (OCACT) estimated that the cost of the Mexican agreement would be $78 million in the first year of the agreement and would grow to $650 million (in constant 2002 dollars) in 2050. SSA’s actuarial cost estimate assumes the initial number of newly eligible Mexican beneficiaries is equivalent to the 50,000 beneficiaries living in Mexico today and would grow sixfold over time.
The link was supplied by the other idiot who can't read.
Grow to $650 million by 2050?
Where are all those billions you "ciphered" for us Jethro?
It's YOUR math that sucks.
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