ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
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1)How does favoring immigration interact with American affirmative action rules? Many illegals would qualify for preferences.
2)Would you favor unlimited immigration to Israel? Eight million Iranian as an example? An act of suicide in my opinion.
3)Low income workers pay no taxes save for FICA, so how could they possible pay for a pro rata share of government service, Defense Dept. for example.
Thank you, Kent Gatewood
National Defense is a particularly bad example as the cost of national defense doesn't increase with population. If additional people added additional territory to defend, then that would be a concern.
Where your scenario would and does have an impact is for wealth transfer programs where adding more recipients without adding more payers is problematic. It's also problematic for public goods whose individual benefit declines with the number of users, such as roads (more drivers without more funding = congestion).
So there are many examples where importing sheer Brawn (to use Bryan's misnomer for lower skilled and more importantly lower IQ (which translates as lower capacity to learn new skills)) can damage national well-being as Kent suggests. It's just that national defense isn't the right example to use.
To give an in-the-news counter-example to the all immigration is good camp, consider the plight of Houston post-Katrina.
I think Greg Mankiw’s blog will get a lot more attention than he intended. In addition to his being “an icon within the profession,” he fills a shortage of conservative Keynesians within the blogosphere.
"How does favoring immigration interact with American affirmative action rules? Many illegals would qualify for preferences."
I'm sorry, is this an argument about affirmative action or immigration? Certainly immigrants would qualify for equal protection and thats fine with me, but wading into such nonsense as 'racial preferences' in affirmative action weather they exist or are just rhetorical bait is decidedly beside the point on if immigration in itself is a noble or sound thing to pursue.
And its the classic canard; That also applies to 'immigrants feeding at the trough of the welfare state' as well.
"Would you favor unlimited immigration to Israel? Eight million Iranian as an example? An act of suicide in my opinion."
Given Israel's mission objective is decidedly anti-liberal as a state that must have a particular ethno-religeous characteristic, it hardly bears discussing, unless you feel for some reason the US should be designated the 'Homeland for White People'
"Low income workers pay no taxes save for FICA, so how could they possible pay for a pro rata share of government service, Defense Dept. for example."
In addition to the previous arguments on why Defence is a bad example, immigrants increase the size of the overall economy and the tax base as a whole even if they don't pay taxes themselves, so revenue will still increase.