Cato Institute Comes Out in Favor Of Comprehensive Immigration Reform
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By: Angel Reyes
For those readers who aren’t familiar with the Cato Institute, here is its mission statement: “The mission of the Cato Institute is to increase the understanding of public policies based on the principles of limited government, free markets, individual liberty, and peace. The Institute will use the most effective means to originate, advocate, promote, and disseminate applicable policy proposals that create free, open, and civil societies in the United States and throughout the world.”
Parse those words carefully, you’ll see the familiar code words for conservative causes, in spite of the Institute’s website description which describes the Cato Institute as Libertarian Capitalism, whatever that means. But who cares, in a new study by Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer at the Cato Institute, the findings are much like the findings in my book Hispanic Heresy. The findings throw cold water on the red-blooded Americans who typically back conservative causes and talk show hosts like Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, etc. Those shows and their audiences typically scream at the top of their lungs that we need to immediately deport 12 million illegal aliens.
So, what are the findings? It turns out that repelling immigrant labor actually hurts the American economy. The study’s authors note that “[i]n contrast, legalization of low-skilled immigrant workers would yield significant income gains for American workers and households.” Katie bar the door, or should we say razor-wire across the Mexican border? The authors of the study used a dynamic economic model that weighs the impact of immigrants on government revenues and expenditures. Tax dollars spent on undocumented aliens is the flashpoint in the “what part of illegal” don’t you understand argument. Most Americans believe that immigrants consume far more of our government/tax resources than they contribute. This new Cato Institute study debunks that myth. Indeed, the study found that legalizing the entry of MORE low-skilled immigrants would result in economic gains of approximately $80 billion, yes, that’s with a B.
In Hispanic Heresy my co-authors and I argued that bringing the 12 million undocumented aliens out of the shadows and into the mainstream of the American economy would be the best opportunity this country has to bring workers into the system to prop up America’s rapidly aging population. Such a proposal has long term impacts on Medicare funding, Social Security funding, etc. Hispanic immigrants are the youngest demographic in America. They are the future workers who will be supporting the likes of Bill O’Reilly’s Social Security. In 2050, 1 in 4 Americans will be of Hispanic descent. Demography is destiny.