Totalization With Mexico Could "Total" Social Security

Totalization With Mexico Could "Total" Social Security Recently, I received a letter from Edward I. Nelson, the Chairman of United States Border Control, regarding a proposed “Totalization Treaty/Agreement” with Mexico. This is not a subject with which I am unfamiliar, as I wrote an article about it while I was a reporter for Talon News/GOPUSA.com, viewable here. (I have to refer you to this website, as the archives at Talon News are no longer available since the “Gannon-gate” ordeal.)

Totalization agreements were begun to help employees sent abroad to still have enough credits to draw Social Security benefits with the contributions paid in total in the countries in which the employee worked. Most such agreements -- the United States has 20 -- are with European countries.

In his letter, Mr. Nelson explains that past Totalization Agreements have had little impact on U.S. taxpayers because they involved only a few thousand workers who were sent abroad by their employers, and that the reciprocating countries also sent a reasonably equal number of workers to work, and pay taxes, in the United States.

However, with the State Department and the Social Security Administration having now signed onto the idea of Totalization with Mexico, it has become an issue that could devastate the American Social Security system, and therefore, an issue which needs to be brought to the attention of EVERY AMERICAN! As I view it, this literally has the potential to bankrupt our retirement system.

Should the President sign this treaty, it would instantly make millions of Mexicans, both legal AND ILLEGAL, eligible for S.S. benefits. Naturally, this comes at a time when the President (of whom, in most matters, I am a strong supporter) is going around the country trying to convince Americans that the Social Security system is in crisis…and with that, I agree!

The Social Security Administration would have us believe that illegal workers would not qualify under a Totalization Agreement with Mexico. However, according to azcentral.com, an Inspector General's report says that the SSA "doesn't consider the work-authorization status of the individual when they earned the wages. It only considers whether the individual can prove he or she paid Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) taxes as part of this work." And, even IF the claim that Illegal workers were not eligible were true, the writing on the wall is that a general amnesty is on the horizon, which would immediately make ALL illegals (and their dependants) eligible

Further complicating this issue is the fact that once a beneficiary of this Treaty returns to Mexico, his/her spouse and dependants also become eligible for U.S. Social Security benefits. Can you imagine the cost to the S.S. system? According to the Center for Immigration Studies, (http://www.cis.org), in 2000, there were an estimated 9,177,000 Mexicans in the United States (4,808,000 are here illegally), compared to a TOTAL of 3,831,000 foreigners from ALL other countries with whom the United States has Totalization agreements; nearly 2.5 times as many!

Add to all this mess what many see as an all-but-certain push for a blanket amnesty for all illegals, and the impact on the S.S. system will be disastrous should a Totalization agreement with Mexico be authorized. There would be so little reciprocation from the Mexican side of such an agreement that it may as well not even exist. The reason I say this is that, according to the CIS website, the SSA estimates that there are only “3,000 current American workers and their employers (that) would benefit from a Totalization program.”

A program such as this will only further encourage illegal immigration to the United States. You see, it takes 40 YEARS to qualify for Mexico’s retirement system - and even then you are only entitled to receive back the amount that you have paid into the system. Kind of makes America sound like the promised land, doesn’t it?

And, since it would relieve the Mexican government from having to use its resources take care of its own citizens, the Mexican government would inevitably even further encourage its citizens to illegally migrate to the U.S. That is a no-brainer. I mean, as it is, they already publish manuals advising their citizens how to safely break into the U.S. without detection.

Now, here is the kicker. Even I was surprised to learn that all that needs to happen for a Totalization Agreement to pass is that the President sign it - that’s it. It DOES NOT need to be passed in Congress. However, there is hope! If, within 60 days of the president’s signature, Congress repeals the treaty, it is then nullified. This is where you, the American public, DESPARATELY need to get involved.

As Mr. Nelson’s letter points out, on Jan. 4 of this year, Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), “introduced H. Res. 20, a bill to disapprove the Totalization Treaty between the U.S. and Mexico.”

Included in the letter I got from the US Border Control were three post cards. The first of these was to President Bush. It reads as follows:

I am shocked and quite disturbed that you are allowing the Totalization Treaty between the United States and Mexico to go forward even as you warn the nation that our Social Security Trust Fund is in financial trouble.

Your strong support for AgJobs, Guest Workers and all the other thinly disguised amnesty programs for millions of illegal aliens, along with your support for Totalization, make it appear that you are more concerned about the health and welfare of Mexicans than the American people.

Please prove me wrong by expressing your opposition to the Totalization Treaty and to all forms of amnesty for illegal aliens. Thank you.

>"what is the genesis of the word "totalization?".where did it spring from?..sounds like one of those innocuous government gobbledygook words to make something sound different from what it really is."<

I don't know...ask Ben Fincklin, he will probably know.

See his link here, he posted to an article that claims minumum wage illegal aliens will save Social Security.

Ben believes that...
>..Never mind that minumum wage workers (on the average) use three times as much in government assistance as they pay in taxes, including FICA.
(Illegal aliens pay approx. 10 billion in taxes, and recieve 26 billion in government benefits.)

But Ben's also for anything that will help destroy our national sovereignty. That's part of his socialist agenda.
Isn't that right Ben? ;^)

Additional info HERE:
http://www.ssa.gov/international/agreements_overview.html

Totalization: Sellout of American Workers

When George W. Bush became President in 2001, the Mexican government expected the United States to pass amnesty (disguised as a guest worker plan and "regularizing" the entry of Mexicans). After 9/11, Mexico's national policy turned to increasing the number of its nationals working in the United States and getting them to qualify for all the social benefits and privileges Americans receive, from driver's licenses to Social Security and Social Security Disability.

The Social Security commissioners of both Mexico and the Bush Administration signed a totalization agreement in June of 2004, but the text of the agreement has been kept secret. Maybe we will be permitted to see it after the President approves it and sends it to Congress.

Social Security proposal for Mexico Ruffles Feathers

The few Americans able to benefit from the totalization (around 3,000 Americans work in Mexico, compared to the 9.2 million Mexicans living in the United States) would not receive as many positive effects as Mexicans would from American Social Security. The U.S. system helps low-wage earners by giving them far more then they contribute, while Mexican Social Security gives the worker only exactly what they contribute, along with accrued interest, Dinerstein explained.

Dinerstein said that the Mexican government officials are pressuring the United States to accept their agenda through repetition of two points. They say that the United States should focus on the war on terror and stop harassing immigrants who only want a better life, and that it is only fair for Mexico to be treated like Canada, another U.S. Social Security partner. But Dinerstein maintained that Mexico's situation is fundamentally different then other Social Security partner countries and that this agreement would hurt America financially.

Mexamerica

The amount of American dollars flowing to Mexico could soon skyrocket. The Bush Administration is reportedly negotiating a “totalization” agreement with Mexico that would allow Mexicans who retire to their native land to get monthly Social Security checks south of the border. While this would put an added drain on Social Security just as Baby Boomers are starting to retire, advocates argue that to do any less than this would rob immigrants. A cynic might observe that this could persuade millions of aging Mexican retirees to return to Mexico to become a burden on its healthcare system instead of ours.

The North American Free Trade Agreement signed into law by President Bill Clinton implies that not only goods but also labor should be allowed to move across the fading U.S.-Mexican border. By such reasoning, why not let Social Security checks cross the border, even if this flow makes the U.S. poorer and Mexico richer? It is the osmotic pressure of Mexico’s poverty that propels so much of its population through our porous border in search of a better life.

The criminal raid on Social Security

While innocent babes who have yet to earn a penny are threatened with jail time for misusing Social Security cards, the Bush administration appears set this week to turn the ailing government pension program into an international relief fund for illegal alien workers who used counterfeit Social Security cards and stolen numbers to secure illegal jobs.

The bureaucrats call this scheme "totalization." Try total prostration. The proposed agreement is nothing more than a transfer of wealth from those who play by the rules to those who willingly and knowingly mock our own immigration and tax laws. What are we doing promising lifetime Social Security paychecks to day laborers in Juarez when we can't even guarantee those benefits to workers here at home?

Unbelievably, the White House is trying to convince us to embrace this global ripoff because it "rewards work." No, it rewards criminal behavior. The plan will siphon off the hard-earned tax dollars of American workers who may never see a dime of their confiscated earnings and fork it over to foreigners guilty of at least four acts of federal law-breaking: crossing the border illegally, working illegally, engaging in tax fraud and using bogus documents.

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