The White House claims that the president’s unconstitutional and illegal executive actions on immigration are worth it because it will grow the economy, yet it failed to point out that this growth comes at the expense of American workers and taxpayers. On February 4, the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration (SSA), Stephen C. Goss, testified before the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee on the effect the president’s executive actions will have on Social Security Trust Fund. Goss, in theory a non-political, non-partisan official, told the committee that the Trust Fund would be “improved slightly by 2014…reducing the current-law actuarial deficit by 0.01 percent of payroll.” Goss also said that the result of “growing the economy” through immigration would result in a “small positive for the next 75 years as a whole” for the Trust Fund.
Sounds good, right? We shouldn’t worry about the collapse of the republic if Social Security is going to be saved in the process. But the written testimony submitted to the committee paints a rather gloomier picture.
What Goss is basing his projections upon is his assumption that Obama’s executive actions would result in an additional 248,000 workers making payroll contributions by 2024. There would also be fewer illegal aliens due to “enhanced border security” (50,000 per year) and efforts focused “more heavily on identifying and deporting undocumented residents who represent threats to national security, border security, and public safety” (30,000 per year) for a total reduction of 2.3 million by 2050. Because of an increase of legal workers in the U.S. workforce the GDP would increase by 0.15% ($43 billion) more than it would have without the executive actions. This is three times the recent baseline prediction put out by the White House economic advisors. The increase in GDP and, therefore, in contributions is really optimistic, to say the least. For example, the net increase of 248,000 workers by 2024 who will provide an extra $43 billion in GDP means that each additional worker will on average account for $173,387 in economic output. Using the SSA’s calculation, the average U.S. worker currently contributes $120,047 to total GDP.
In the final analysis, what is the “small positive” that the executive actions will provide the Trust Fund? Goss projects that the Trust Fund will still go broke in 2033; the executive actions will only result in it becoming insolvent “later in the year 2033 (by about 3 months).” The Pew Research Center projected just how many immigrants the U.S. would need to admit to stop our population from aging: We would need to increase immigration to 15 times the current rate! President Obama’s plan will result in millions more relatively younger immigrants settling in the United States, and will extend the life of Social Security by three months. Is that a “small positive?”
Additional Resources: Issue Brief: White House Report Confirms President Obama’s Executive Actions Will Harm American Workers, Taxpayers
8 Comments
Pingback: Giuseppe
Guess who was on the floor of the Senate reading excerpts from the Computerworld magazine story about Southern California Edison replacing their American IT workers with H-1B visa workers from abroad, and condemning that action? Diane Feinstein? Barbara Boxer? Nope, Jeff Sessions of Alabama.
Jeff Sessions fights harder for the American workers than anyone in the country. He presents the best case ever!
I watch him on C-Span, whenever I get a chance. He has information and charts that disprove every fallacy the pro-amnesty and Democrats throws out.
Write him, let him know how you feel and thank him. He is one of the very few options to get the truth out thru all the rhetoric and nonsense.
Actually I do not support a lot of the Republican program. But as far as I am concerned those things can be changed or modified. What we cannot change is the damage that the present levels of immigration are doing to this country. We’re in a hole and we keep digging. That could work as pun on California, a state that is almost on the verge of running out of water, and the politicians and the voters who elect them keep supporting more immigration when they cannot provide for their present population. Formerly the Golden State, now the fool’s gold state.
Like Sessions or not, he is not one of the political clowns who talks out of both sides of his mouth on immigration. He’s the one on the floor of the Senate defending California workers when their senators won’t.
I am an Independent that does not support everything the Republicans are for, just as don’t like a lot about the Democrats, but stopping mass illegal/legal immigration is the most important issue facing our country and this is the number one issue I vote on. If our country becomes an overpopulated, impoverished, Third World country without much of a middle class and a wrecked environment none of the other issues are going to matter.
The notion that the huge increase in the population of the US in recent decades has resulted in stronger US economic performance so we need to have more mass immigration is not supported by facts. In 1950 the US had a population of roughly 150 million people and in 1960 the US had a population of roughly 180 million people. In the intervening years the US had a trade surplus, was the world’s largest exporter and was the world’s largest creditor nation.
In 2015 with a population of roughly 320 million people, the US runs the world’s largest trade deficits, and is the world’s largest debtor nation.
With a population of just over 80 million, Germany today exports more than America and in 2014 ran the world’s largest current account/trade surplus. Germany is the world’s third largest creditor nation.
Japan has a population of roughly 127 million people in 2015 and is the world’s largest creditor nation for the 23rd year in a row.
The Only Ones That Push Spending all the Social Security on General Budget and IAs
Aren’t on Social Security.
When they taut the economic benefits of an amnesty, they never emphasize the fact that these benefits will come after 10 years. After 10 years. After 10 years.
Therefore, what do we get in after 1 year, after 2 years, after 3 years, after 7 years, after 9 years???
A crappy economy, a crappy economy, a crappy economy, a crappy economy, a crappy economy!!!