Imigration in America

[Jester]

Everyone will want they're cut though, in a legal market you pay for distribution, marketing, profits, taxes.

Don't tax it. Don't allow marketing. Distribution is already a part of the costs of illegal drugs, and cannot take advantage of the easy distribution already enjoyed by pharmacists. Profits are also already a part of the cost (duh). Insofar as everyone wanting a cut, just let the market do its work. Inefficient middlemen will be bypassed. Efficient ones will get a cut, but that's no different from now. So far, all I'm seeing is savings.

The government has two overwhelming reasons to do the opposite of what you suggest. First, the promise of tax money to offset the costs of prevention programs and addiction treatment, second, that enforcement makes the government bigger.

Once again: this is what I suggest. If they do something else, then tough beans for them. Offsetting the price of prevention programs and addiction treatments is, I suspect, best done with other taxes. And I'm afraid I don't follow the libertarian tune - the government expands, but it doesn't expand simply for its own sake. It does what it does because there is a reason to, and while it is hardly a paragon of efficiency, it wastes far, far less than most people believe.

That is the myth, and some illegal liquor was dangerous. But, like any illegal product it needs to pass for the legal one. The businesses that distribute alcohol and cigarettes have always been on the shady side of the law. Illegal alcohol is a huge part of the bar and restaurant business.

I suspect reducing the sin taxes would clean up that problem, or at least sharply reduce it. Whether that's worth the decreased revenue and the increase in alcohol consumption, I don't know.

The price will plummet, yes, of course.

This wasn't what you were claiming before...

You could do it illegally. Look at what has happened on the internet with something as simple as Viagra.

The retail price of Viagra is driven by pharma overhead - notably marketing and patents. Currently illegal drugs have no patents, and I marketing them should probably be banned ayway. The illegal stuff does not suffer those costs, and is of seriously dubious quality.

To be clear, I don't think legalization will absolutely eradicate all counterfeiting, ersatz production, or gang involvement in the bottom end of the business. What it will do is cut out the heart of the business, putting a major dent in gang funding, and improving the overall safety of drug use, both in terms of quality and violence. If the gangs are competing for small margins rather than large ones, that means smaller gangs, less violence, and less money for their other activities. That, in turn, makes them easier to suppress with ordinary law enforcement.

It occurs often where immigrants (legal and illegal) are bound by illegal contracts to work off the cost of their own transport. Then, they find they are incarcerated until their debt is paid off, and must also pay for room and board for their own incarceration.

Very few people are going to take that risk if there is a safer alternative readily available. Increased legal migration means far fewer people who resort to these extreme measures, which means less profit for the despicable criminals who take advantage of them.

Finding an unbiased source for or against in this debate is getting difficult.

Really? What axe is the CBO supposedly grinding here?

I agree that most pay some taxes, at least consumption taxes. Many are filing their tax returns using a federal ID number, which also allows them to get their refunds.

If so, then that would negate the relatively paltry amount they owe in income taxes. I would have thought that claiming tax rebates would be setting themselves up for investigation, but maybe the benefit outweighs the cost? Not sure.

So, no, I don't believe that many illegal immigrants are earning enough to pay billions of dollars of taxes. (...) It seems like a huge number, but I doubt its anywhere near that high and would hardly offset the costs of illegal immigration in just Arizona.

Tough luck for your beliefs, because they are. Social security deductions off their paycheques alone are 6.8 percent of their earnings, and their employer kicks in that much again. If 7 million are working, they'd only have to be earning an average $7,500 a year in pre-tax income to generate that whole 7 billion in revenue. That's about what they'd be getting working some craptacular job for minimum wage, 25 hours a week. I'm sure quite a lot of them are working more than full time, and at least some of them for more than minimum wage. Subtract from that the number who are working for cash only, and the number seems about right.

As for costs in Arizona, to what are you referring? I'm sure Arizona state pays more than it takes in, but that the value is cancelled out by the benefits to Arizonans (Arizonians?) from the Federal revenue, and from lower prices for goods and services - and that the same is true for all states, at least roughly. The fiscal situation is not the same as the overall economic situation.

I guess another question would be, "who is really paying the tax?" Is it the employer, who passes the costs on in the costs of goods and services? I think so. Not that this would have been different had the labor been entirely legal. But, given that then, there is the additional unremunerated costs born by the local and state governments.

Who is really paying what tax? Wage earners pay pay part of their social security deduction, and employers pay the rest, like any payroll tax. Their consumption taxes are obviously paid by themselves, as are their property taxes. What tax are you talking about, that employers are passing the costs onwards?

Although, they did get here by having their parent skip to the front of the line illegally. Some legal immigrant was denied, and that is the injustice.

Is the number of green cards the US gives out tied to the number of illegal migrants coming in? Legal immigrants being granted or denied a spot is a question decided by the US government, not by migrants.

Regardless, if one is really concerned with the injustice to people waiting in line, the easy solution is to let them in. Problem solved.

You are citing Bastiat to me. I'm getting though to you, aren't I?

Agreeing with elementary principles of economics is something I hope I've always done.

I'm against the lack of order involved in the human trafficking, and the risks of having a porous border or stupid immigration officials allowing potential terrorists here.

Everyone is a potential terrorist. If actual terrorists have been streaming across the border, they seem to have been lying low, because there isn't exactly an abundance of cases that have come to light.

-Jester