WSJ: Immigration Costs Move to Fore

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Immigration Costs Move to Fore

Differing Estimates Open New Battleground Over Senate Bill
By JUNE KRONHOLZ
May 24, 2006; Page A4

(snip)

But as the Senate heads toward a vote on an immigration-overhaul bill, possibly as soon as tomorrow, two widely differing estimates are drawing attention to the costs of Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and other federal benefits that low-skilled immigrant workers could be entitled to -- and further fueling tensions over the bill.

A $16 billion-a-year estimate by the conservative Heritage Foundation "has fallen like a stink bomb in the middle of the debate," says Dan Griswold, who studies immigration and trade issues at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington and who supports the Senate bill. But even a far more modest estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has opened a new battleground over the Senate bill, which depends on a constantly shifting coalition for passage.

(snip)

The CBO report is being touted by those who favor the Senate bill, including the Republican Party's business wing and Democrats. It estimates that legalizing immigrants now here illegally, and offering visas to thousands more workers each year, would cost $54 billion in benefits between 2007 and 2016, and would add 7.8 million people to the U.S. population. But offsetting that, the CBO says, would be $66 billion of new revenue that those workers would add to the treasury from income and payroll taxes, Social Security withholding, and fines and fees required by the law.

(snip)

The Heritage estimate, though, has rallied opponents of the Senate bill, including cultural conservatives and the Republican Party's national-security wing. It predicts tax payments would increase by $3,000 for each legalized-immigrant household, but that federal benefits for those households would increase by $8,000 -- totaling about $16 billion a year in new costs. It also estimates that immigration would increase by 66 million over the next 20 years as guest workers arrive and settle in, and as legalized immigrants bring their families. At that rate, says Robert Rector, the Heritage domestic-policy researcher who wrote the report, yearly immigration would triple and "we really can't assimilate."

The estimates look at different time frames, which explains some of the differences. The CBO estimates are for only the next decade. Most federal benefits, including Social Security, federal student loans, food stamps and Medicaid, are available only to citizens or, in some cases, permanent residents, and so would kick in gradually.

(snip)

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114843558293361432.html (subscription)