Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday to discuss Heritage’s new report on the cost of the Gang of Eight’s deeply flawed immigration reform bill.
“The study you’ll see from Heritage this week presents the staggering cost of another amnesty in our country and the detrimental effects long-term that it will have.” DeMint told host George Stephanopoulos. “There’s no reason we can’t begin to fix our immigration system so that we won’t make the problem worse, but the bill that’s being presented is unfair to those who came here legally, it will cost Americans trillions of dollars and it will make our unlawful immigration system worse.
Heritage’s report, which was released this morning, displays the staggering costs of the Gang of Eight’s plan.
According to the study, the average unlawful immigrant household in 2010 received around $24,721 in government benefits and services while paying only $10,334 in taxes. This generated an average annual fiscal deficit (benefits received minus taxes paid) of around $14,387 per household. This cost had to be borne by U.S. taxpayers.
Heritage believes this fiscal deficit for each household would soar under the Gang of Eight’s plan because it would provide unlawful households with access to over 80 means-tested welfare programs, ObamaCare, Social Security, and Medicare.
The bottom line in the Heritage study is that over a lifetime, the amnestied immigrants together would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services, but only pay $3.1 trillion in taxes. They would generate a lifetime fiscal deficit (total benefits minus total taxes) of $6.3 trillion.
“Heritage is the only organization that has done an analysis of the cost,” DeMint said Sunday. “If you consider all the factors of amnesty and unlawful immigration, the cost will be in the trillions of dollars…”
When asked what he thought will happen to the bill in the Senate, DeMint said, “If people read the bill, it will be blocked.”
[Side note: DeMint will be in south Alabama Wednesday to speak at the Alabama Policy Institute’s Mobile banquet.]
Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions has been leading the charge in the Senate against the Gang of Eight’s proposal. After reading the Heritage Foundation’s study, Sessions reiterated his belief that America can’t afford the costs involved in the Gang of Eight’s bill.
“At a time when our nation’s major entitlements are already nearing bankruptcy, we cannot afford to add another $6.3 trillion in long-term net costs to already over-burdened state, local, and federal governments,” Sessions said. “This bill may be good for the special interests who helped write it. But it’s bad for workers, bad for taxpayers, and fails to serve the national interest.”
Earlier today, POLITICO named Senator Sessions one of their “5 players who could stop immigration reform.”
“The former federal prosecutor has quickly emerged as the noisiest critic of the Gang of Eight on Capitol Hill,” POLITICO quipped before quoting Sessions’ lament that the Gang of Eight’s proposal “fails to live up to every major promise.”
Here’s an excerpt from POLITICO’s post:
“Sessions says leaders are going too fast. He protests the more expansive DREAM Act provisions. Trillions of dollars would be racked up in entitlement costs, he says. He predicts a surge of new immigrants under the legislation, a bad move in an era of stubbornly high unemployment. He’s likened it to the much-maligned Obamacare, warning that the effects of the immigration bill won’t be known until it’s enacted into law.
“It’s unclear how many Senate Republicans will latch onto Sessions’s message, but his persistent critiques will continue. And Sessions holds a senior role on the Judiciary Committee, putting him in a position to push conservative amendments during the markup.”
What else is going on?
1. So what should we expect this week in the legislature?
2. NRA urges Alabama Senate to concur with House-passed gun bill
3. Birmingham Attorney Elected NRA President
4. Alabama Enviro Groups Gear Up for Fight
5. Rumors & Rumblings
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