A lie is usually defined as a willful misrepresentation made with the intent to deceive.
Democrats, Republicans, and their allies tout the economic virtues of their version of immigration reform — more workers, more green cards, and larger amnesties. Among many other virtues, the Senate bill that they champion will, they promise, increase the GNP, increase federal revenues, and reduce the budget. All of this will be accomplished by the simple expedient of adding millions of more green card holders to the million-plus legal immigrants who already arrive here each year.
I think it fair to think that those who tout the automatic growth of GNP know, or should know, that increasing the numbers of people employed and hence greater GNP ought also to consider how many new immigrants can find jobs, what those numbers mean for wage levels, and how adding millions of new workers at a time of high unemployment makes economic or political sense.
I also think it fair to think that those who tout the increased tax revenues that adding millions of immigrant workers are suggested to bring must also weigh in that balance the financial and political costs that the millions more new immigrants would bring with them. Millions of new immigrants would not only add tax revenue, but also make use of public services and government benefits. It is extremely disingenuous and misleading to tout one without mention or analysis of the other.
And finally, there are all those economic benefits "of opening the door to more brainiacs — foreigners who will boost American technology by filling engineering vacancies," as Larry Kudlow puts it. It is simply irresponsible and misleading to tout these benefits without addressing the debate as to whether there is really any engineering shortage at all.
And the same goes for the misleading promise contained in the assertion that, "And if we're talking 50-year periods, the next Google or Apple or Amazon can employ so many and pay such good wages — creating massive wealth through capital and consumer goods — that the economic dynamism of new immigrants could cover all the costs of immigration reform and then some."
Here the premise is that the next Steve Jobs is waiting for a green card and we are simply being stupid if we don't let him and others like them in. The promise is appealing; the logic is appalling.
We, of course, cannot predict who the next Steve Jobs will be. That means we do not know if he or she is now growing up in Addis Ababa or Muncie, Ind. Since we can't know who exactly he or she is or where, exactly he or she is, those who tout future immigrant Googles or Apples make irrelevant claims. "Immigrants or sons of immigrants are founding members of Google, etc." is the usual form these assertions take.
The lesson we are supposed to take from this formulation is that the world is full of people like Steve Jobs, and if we just add millions of more new immigrants on top of the millions we already take in, many more Steve Jobs will be among them. And, as a result, America's technological and economic future will be assured.
It's a lovely dream but an awful premise on which to base immigration policy.
Next: The Myth of Economic Cost-Free Immigration, Pt. 2