CA: Dear cost of `cheap' labor for state - California can't ignore its enormous impact

Mercury News ^ | 7/8/03 | Dan Stein

[NormsRevenge]

There is no simple or single explanation for the kind of gaping budget deficit currently facing California. However, it would be naive in the extreme to ignore the impact of large-scale legal and illegal immigration on a $38.2 billion shortfall in this year's state budget.

[junta]

bump

[GOP_1900AD]

I am so far to the right that I totally agree with you!

[GOP_1900AD]

Imagine the knock on effect nationwide. When can we start?

[GOP_1900AD]

The Left love to wallow in root causes (except they are never true root causes). I'll offer mine.... in addition to all the excessive Green Wacko, OSHA and diVERRRsity regs heaped onto businesses, I would argue that another dimension of Green Whackoism, which is artificial constraints of development and housing stock, underlie to huge costs of doing business here. Imagine how much less the pay scales (not to mention real estate costs) would be if we allowed the free market, perhaps controlled only be functional zoning and urban planning, to drive the real estate and property development markets? If houses did not cost $700,000 then everything else would also be far less expensive.

[GOP_1900AD]

The Left love to wallow in root causes (except they are never true root causes). I'll offer mine.... in addition to all the excessive Green Wacko, OSHA and diVERRRsity regs heaped onto businesses, I would argue that another dimension of Green Whackoism, which is artificial constraints of development and housing stock, underlie to huge costs of doing business here. Imagine how much less the pay scales (not to mention real estate costs) would be if we allowed the free market, perhaps controlled only by functional zoning and urban planning, to drive the real estate and property development markets? If houses did not cost $700,000 then everything else would also be far less expensive.

[daviddennis]

It's easy to demonize a group of people, but it's even harder to confront our own demons.

We have schools that don't teach, roads that are worse than those in a third-world country, and a welfare system that prepetuates an eternal underclass.

And yet we're not thinking about these problems; we're thinking about a bunch of people who we feel are overrunning our country like cockroaches.

Well, they may be. But if they are the punch in the nose that makes us get our own house in order, perhaps they are worth pulling along.

I have been doing a lot of travel lately. I just came back from Rio de Janerio, Brazil, and there was a lovely lady sitting in Coach with me, who works three jobs and was charming, intelligent and an asset to any country. There are plenty of people like her in the world. To me, it doesn't matter what country you came from; it matters who you are. There are plenty of scumbags in Mexico and Nicaruga; there are plenty of scumbags who are citizens of the USA, too.

We have to pay for the educations of ghetto blacks, and rural "white trash", and we do, because we think they may represent the future of this country. Well, so do many of the Mexicans and others who move here in search of something better.

The real shame is that we're letting them all down - legal or illegal - by providing bad educations, awful roads and substandard housing. My question is how we can consider this a challenge instead of an excuse, by making it a reason to make do with what we got, and work smarter instead of throwing money blindly at our problems.

Our system has responded horribly to the challenges that confront us, but that doesn't mean we should eliminate the challenges. It means we should realize the system is broke, and try to fix it, instead of using it as a way to scapegoat racial groups and turn them against each other.

In the end, we're all in this together - and we shouldn't forget it.

D

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Very well summarized! If you come back I'll write in your name for governor :-)

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Most recently, Los Angeles County, which is experiencing a full-blown health care crisis, estimated that caring for uninsured illegal aliens now costs $350 million a year. The state health budget is projected to encounter $3 billion in unreimbursed health care costs for illegal immigrants over the next five years.

Send the bill to Vicente Fox.

[NormsRevenge]

The real shame is that we're letting them all down - legal or illegal - by providing bad educations, awful roads and substandard housing.

---

Your points are well made. Let's modify your statement above just a bit if that's OK.

The real shame is that our elected officials and bureaucracies nationwide are letting them and its legal citizenry down by providing bad educations, awful roads and substandard housing.

[skeeter]

The real shame is that we're letting them all down - legal or illegal...

You lost me here.

[daviddennis]

My point is that both legal and illegal residents are poorly served by the existing system. I absolutely agree that it's the bureaucracies that sell us all down the river.

I think plenty of illegal residents are decent and hardworking people who would make great citizens eventually.

I just don't feel the hostility to them many others here do.

D

[kellynla]

David, it is not the responsibility of America to provide a job, education and medication for everyone who manages to enter this country. There are no guarantees for legal immigrants. I refuse to make those guarantees to illegal immigrants. My ancestors entered this country legally and I refuse to pay for others to live here illegally. Mexico should solve the problems of Mexicans. Your contention is that I should fed, cloth, educate and medicate everyone who breaks into my house. I don't think so...

[daviddennis]

By letting our providers of horrible government services off the hook by saying "Oh, it's the illegals fault", we're excusing the fact that our services have been inexcusably bad for decades.

I think illegals are the scapegoat for problems, not the cause of them. And I think a lot of them are just trying to make a living in a very difficult global environment.

Illegals have no source of political power, and therefore no ability or responsibility to make our system work. We have that responsibility and that power. If we let our public institutions use illegals as an excuse to provide worse services for more money, then we're doing our own people a disservice.

D

[kellynla]

"illegal residents are poorly served by the existing system" The "system" is not designed to "serve" illegal immigrants. Again, if you are in America illegally the only "system" designed for you is deportation. Game, Set, Match!

[Amerigomag]

instead of using it as a way to scapegoat racial groups and turn them against each other.

Dave, you're just plain wrong on at least three levels.

First, illegal immigration is not a racial issue. Even if all the illegal immigrants were from Mexico it's still not a racial issue because Mexican's are racially classified as white Europeans (if you're from Rio Linda that means they're white). Even Mexico's native peoples are classified as caucasoid.

Second, the consequences of illegal immigration over the last 50 years in California is THE problem in today's budget crisis. These immigrants and their children consume almost 35% of California's budget today through public education, public health and the legal system. This 35% figure EXCLUDES the cost of public welfare.

Third, there is no system of government than can support itself if it relies on a shrinking population of educated, productive people working outside the public sector, to support a growing public sector and a growing nonproductive private sector. Illegal immigration, principally from Mexico, is increasing at a geometric rate. Birth rates among these immigrants remains high (almost twice the state average) while the balance of the population is reproducing at less than replacement rates. Simply put the onslaught of illegal aliens can't be absorbed by our system if we continue to provide to the them what is considered today the most basic of services, a free primary and secoundary education, free emergency medical services and ajudication/punishment for criminal behavior.

Nice try Dave but try again!

[NormsRevenge]

Good to see ya! You been recharging your batteries?

[Amerigomag]

You been recharging your batteries?

No. My oldest bought a "fixer upper" in Morrow Bay and we've been "fixing it up" for the past 5 weeks.

When I was younger "fixer uppers" in Morrow Bay cost about $60K. Today they're close to a half millon near the beach. The saving grace to this insanity is that the cost of repairs/upgrade remains about the same in 1960 dollars.

Thanks for the note.

[6ppc]

The way things are apparently ...(in my out of state opinion;^)... going, the Guard may be needed to keep the taxpayers from leaving!

[SSN558]

There is a reason that immigration law exists, and it is to balance this equation: immigration = rate of economic growth. When the law is not enforced the economy can not support the increase in population. Declining standard of living for the majority is the result. Spend O'crats and employers of illegals don't get it, or maybe they do.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

But, But, But! "Our Diversity Is Our Strength!"