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 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Only thing I disagree with is English as an official language, but I am for a dual approach of immigration reform and increased border security.

Why?

To me, spoken language is one of the most powerful "mechanism" to culture an identity for a country.

And when I mean "official languange"... I really mean all Government/State activites. I don't mean it like we'd have to strip down all the Chinese signs in China town...

Now granted... I live in mid-west, so I'm not attuned to other issues that those on the border states see...

Because I think that Government serves the people, and it is the responsibility of Government to speak the language of the people it works for, not the other way around.

Implementation of that idea is tricky, how much of a language is enough to justify the Government adjusting and I would probably only count citizens and nationals to decide that. But it's the Governmets job to be accessible to the populace, not the other way around IMO.

Really just comes down to "who is really working for who" to me.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Why should a workers permit be heavily taxed? They should pay the same taxes as anybody else, don't punish them for having a permit, that just means they won't get one.

Yeah... I agree with that. I never truly understood that green-cards get taxed more.

Because in the end they arn't taxed as much.

They pay payroll taxes, but then a good chunk of the money is leaving the country. It will then go to strengthening another country's economy. It won't increase the money flow within the US as much as if the money had stayed within the country(given how the money multiplier works)

Thats why it needs to be taxed. Its money that isn't benifiting the economy as much.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Why should a workers permit be heavily taxed? They should pay the same taxes as anybody else, don't punish them for having a permit, that just means they won't get one.

Yeah... I agree with that. I never truly understood that green-cards get taxed more.

Because in the end they arn't taxed as much.

They pay payroll taxes, but then a good chunk of the money is leaving the country. It will then go to strengthening another country's economy. It won't increase the money flow within the US as much as if the money had stayed within the country(given how the money multiplier works)

Thats why it needs to be taxed. Its money that isn't benifiting the economy as much.

So? It's not the job of the government to decide where money gets spend by people earning it. People saving money have the same impact as money send to another country. They still eat and live here and purchase things.

If anything create a new "export" tax on money, basically a replacement sales tax. Although that means that the money collected should go to the state where they live, and not the national government.

If they have a choice of "work illegally and keep all my money, or work legally any get taxed much more that anybody else", what do you think will happen?

 d-usa wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Why should a workers permit be heavily taxed? They should pay the same taxes as anybody else, don't punish them for having a permit, that just means they won't get one.

Yeah... I agree with that. I never truly understood that green-cards get taxed more.

Because in the end they arn't taxed as much.

They pay payroll taxes, but then a good chunk of the money is leaving the country. It will then go to strengthening another country's economy. It won't increase the money flow within the US as much as if the money had stayed within the country(given how the money multiplier works)

Thats why it needs to be taxed. Its money that isn't benifiting the economy as much.

So? It's not the job of the government to decide where money gets spend by people earning it. People saving money have the same impact as money send to another country. They still eat and live here and purchase things.

If anything create a new "export" tax on money, basically a replacement sales tax. Although that means that the money collected should go to the state where they live, and not the national government.

If they have a choice of "work illegally and keep all my money, or work legally any get taxed much more that anybody else", what do you think will happen?

Or live here, pay normal taxes, and have a superior standard of living.

You shouldn't get American prosperity without living here.

They would live here, they just wouldn't spend all their money here. Taxing them more than others gives them zero incentives for working here legally, so you might as well just ignore reform and just crank up enforcement of current rules since they will continue to work illegally under the "get penalized for getting a permit" plan.

In which case we need to make it far worse to get caught working illegally.

So what about people that save 25% of their money each month, how do you plan on punishing them for not putting money in the economy? I got a retirement fund that is not being spend at Wal-Mart.

Grey T: I think the higher taxes on green-card applicants is more of "protectionism" for American Workers then "worrying" where the tax revenue goes.

D-USA has a point... people respond to the environment they're in and if it's more profitable (and can get away with it), they'll do this under the books and be here illegally. We need to encourage an environment that doesn't encourage illegal workers.

I still say make the English language official... *shrugs*, isn't that what we have "unofficially" anyway?

 d-usa wrote:
So what about people that save 25% of their money each month, how do you plan on punishing them for not putting money in the economy? I got a retirement fund that is not being spend at Wal-Mart.

Your savings are invested in the economy, unless you just pack bank notes under your mattress.

That said, dollars are no use to immigrants' families unless they spend them, so it's nonsense to say the money is just removed from the economy.

When we got the Bush stimulus check, I went on vacation end spend all that money in Europe.

Please don't tell anybody...

 d-usa wrote:
So what about people that save 25% of their money each month, how do you plan on punishing them for not putting money in the economy? I got a retirement fund that is not being spend at Wal-Mart.

What this guy said

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Your savings are invested in the economy, unless you just pack bank notes under your mattress.

That said, dollars are no use to immigrants' families unless they spend them, so it's nonsense to say the money is just removed from the economy.

Except they tend to be spending them in Mexico, which does little good for the US economy.

yes, they eventually make it back to the US but that time is time they weren't helping the US.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
So what about people that save 25% of their money each month, how do you plan on punishing them for not putting money in the economy? I got a retirement fund that is not being spend at Wal-Mart.

What this guy said

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Your savings are invested in the economy, unless you just pack bank notes under your mattress.

That said, dollars are no use to immigrants' families unless they spend them, so it's nonsense to say the money is just removed from the economy.

Except they tend to be spending them in Mexico, which does little good for the US economy.

yes, they eventually make it back to the US but that time is time they weren't helping the US.

So what about people that are citizens, who have family in different parts of the country? People going on vacation?

Again, producing arbitrary rules because you don't like where they spend their money will do nothing to promote legalizing their status.

 d-usa wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
So what about people that save 25% of their money each month, how do you plan on punishing them for not putting money in the economy? I got a retirement fund that is not being spend at Wal-Mart.

What this guy said

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Your savings are invested in the economy, unless you just pack bank notes under your mattress.

That said, dollars are no use to immigrants' families unless they spend them, so it's nonsense to say the money is just removed from the economy.

Except they tend to be spending them in Mexico, which does little good for the US economy.

yes, they eventually make it back to the US but that time is time they weren't helping the US.

So what about people that are citizens, who have family in different parts of the country? People going on vacation?

Again, producing arbitrary rules because you don't like where they spend their money will do nothing to promote legalizing their status.

Who cares about different parts of the country.


And we need to have arbitrary lines. Citizenship is a privilege, lets make it actually have tangible benifits.

I'm not talking about different parts of the country.

I am talking about citizens who have family in different countries. People going on vacation in different countries.

Citizenship is a privilege, lets make it actually have tangible benifits.

Sounds just like another way of saying "lets penalize people for not being American". But like I have said about 5 times now, if your plan is to crap on people and penalizing them for becoming legal immigrants, then they will have zero incentive to become legal.

Even if they are legal, why should an employer pay them minimum wage with the worker loosing a large part of it to taxes if he can just pay them $5 under the table and the workers get to keep most of it, no taxes collected at all.

Screwing people over after they become legal doesn't do much to convince them to become legal.

Surely citizenship already confers a number of privileges, foremost of which is that you can legally live and work in the USA.

 Grey Templar wrote:
In which case we need to make it far worse to get caught working illegally.

Why not make the punishments for employing illegals harsher? Why is it ok to blame the poor people working here for nothing while the people getting rich off them aren't held accountable?

 DutchKillsRambo wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
In which case we need to make it far worse to get caught working illegally.

Why not make the punishments for employing illegals harsher? Why is it ok to blame the poor people working here for nothing while the people getting rich off them aren't held accountable?

Because! Big Business shouldn't be penalized, ever!

But no. There are punishments on the books for employing illegals, but there's all kinds of ways that businesses wiggle out of it. And for that matter, in some cases the fines that they incur are still cheaper than employing locals who are legal.

 DutchKillsRambo wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
In which case we need to make it far worse to get caught working illegally.

Why not make the punishments for employing illegals harsher? Why is it ok to blame the poor people working here for nothing while the people getting rich off them aren't held accountable?

I STRONGLY agree with this. Hammer the employers, they're knowingly cheating the country and abusing these people. Both parties are still committing a crime but if we're going to hold citizenship up as this ideal to strive for, should we not punish our sovereign peers more stringently?

 Kanluwen wrote:

Because! Big Business shouldn't be penalized, ever!

No, because illegal immigration is a large part of the private business economy in the South*.

Of course, this is not at all like anything that's happened in the South before. Granted, it happens everywhere, everyone likes cheap labor. Outsourcing and all.

Its also not really about illegal immigration, that's going to happen no matter what, its about drug violence.


*I'm joking, it matters with respect to the whole country, but it is more prominent in states close to Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean.