Texas Comptroller reports undocumented immigrants good for economy
A report released this week by the Texas Comptrollers Office found that undocumented immigrants contributed $17.7 billion to that states economy and that state revenues collected from undocumented immigrants exceeded what was spent on services for them by $424.7 million.
The report found that undocumented immigrants in Texas generated more taxes and other revenue than the state spends on them. These findings run in direct contradiction to a recent report from The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), “The Cost of Illegal Immigration to Texans” which claimed that "Texas’s illegal immigrant population is costing the state’s taxpayers more than $4.7 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration."
Comptroller, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, was quick to point out that this was the first time any state agency in the country presented "a comprehensive financial analysis of the impact of undocumented immigrants on a state’s budget and economy, looking at gross state product, revenues generated, taxes paid and the cost of state services."
The report titled "Undocumented Immigrants In Texas: A Financial Analysis of the Impact to the State Budget and Economy" found that "“the absence of the estimated 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas in fiscal 2005 would have been a loss to our gross state product of $17.7 billion. Undocumented immigrants produced $1.58 billion in state revenues, which exceeded the $1.16 billion in state services they received."
tags: immigration, Texas comptroller study
Much has been written in recent months about the costs and economic benefits associated with the rising number of undocumented immigrants in Texas and the U.S. as a whole. Most reports tie the costs of the undocumented population to education, medical expenses, incarceration and the effects of low-paid workers on the salaries of legal residents. Revenue gains to governments resulting from undocumented immigrants consist primarily of taxes that cannot be avoided, such as sales taxes, various fees and user taxes on items such as gasoline and motor vehicle inspections.
This financial report focuses on the costs to the state of Texas; that is, services paid for with state revenue, including education, healthcare and incarceration. What government- sponsored services are available to undocumented immigrants is often determined by federal restrictions on spending (Exhibit 1). The report also identifies areas of costs to local governments and hospitals. Finally, it analyzes the $17.7 billion impact on the state’s economy as well as state revenues generated by undocumented immigrants.
The Comptroller’s report estimates that undocumented immigrants in Texas generate more taxes and other revenue than the state spends on them. This finding is contrary to two recent reports, FAIR’s, “The Cost of Illegal Immigration to Texans” and the Bell Policy Center’s “Costs of Federally Mandated Services to Undocumented Immigrants in Colorado”, both of which identified costs exceeding revenue.
-snip-
The immigration debate has become more heated in 2006. Congressional hearings were held across the U.S. to discuss the impact of undocumented immigrants on the economy and the culture. At the same time, two distinctly different pieces of legislation were voted out of the U.S. House and Senate.
The Comptroller’s office estimates the absence of the estimated 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas in fiscal 2005 would have been a loss to our Gross State Product of $17.7 billion. Also, the Comptroller’s office estimates that state revenues collected from undocumented immigrants exceed what the state spent on services, with the difference being $424.7 million (Exhibit 18).
The largest cost factor was education, followed by incarceration and healthcare. Consumption taxes and fees, the largest of which is the sales tax, were the largest revenue generators from undocumented immigrants.
"Undocumented Immigrants In Texas: A Financial Analysis of the Impact to the State Budget and Economy"
The study did show that unlike the state, local governments and hospitals incur costs that are not reimbursed by the state or federal government.
While not the focus of this report, some local costs and revenues were estimated. State-paid health care costs are a small percentage of total health care spending for undocumented immigrants. The Comptroller estimates
cost to hospitals not reimbursed by state funds totaled $1.3 billion in 2004. Similarly, 2005 local costs for incarceration are estimated to be $141.9 million. The Comptroller estimates that undocumented immigrants paid more than $513 million in fiscal 2005 in local taxes, including city, county and special district sales and property taxes.
While state revenues exceed state expenditures for undocumented immigrants, local governments and hospitals experience the opposite, with the estimated difference being $928.9 million for 2005.
The $1.3 billion in uncompensated costs to local hospitals attributed to undocumented immigrants represents 14% of the total $9.2 billion in uncompensated care reported for uninsured and underinsured individuals who could not pay for the services they received. As healthcare professionals are quick to point out, the problem of uncompensated care is systemic and not limited to the undocumented. Studies show that the undocumented generally utilize health services at a much lower rates than legal residents and that the chief causes of increasing rates of uncompensated costs are the ever increasing numbers of uninsured coupled with limited payment schedules of government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.
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healthcare,
immigration,
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11 comments:
Wow, this big pile of BS article seems to making it's rounds out in Spicville today, isn't it?
Newsflash, Dukey-boy, all that human trash-- oh sorry, should I say, "undocumented immigrants" does nothing but drain away social services and bring the "englightened" Beaner culture of stupidity and gang-bangin' to US territory.
And also the verbal diarrhea you all call "Spanish."
This article is nothing but another load of BS trying to make Anglos try to ignore the wreck of the country from you Beaners. There's a reason we took like half your territory in the Mexican War, it's that we knew the way you'd trash it later on and decided to take it out of the stinking hands of Spicville. Now with it being Anglo country, it's an actually useful part of the world and you Beaners know it.
Proud Anglo
Proud Gringo occupier of Aztlan since 1983
Look's the Pathetic Anglo's been making his usual rounds again. Posting up ignorant and hateful comments at numerous sites that advocate for immigrants rights.
He's such a sad case.
23 years old, sitting in an internet cafe on Sunset Blvd. or Wilshire at 1AM on a Sunday night with nothing better to do than spew out all the bile and hate built up in his heart. It really is sad to see such a damaged young soul.
It makes one think about what possibly could have happened in his past to have made someone so young so hateful and angry.
His problems go way beyond his ignorance; it's obvious from his obsession with going around from one site to the next just to spread hate that this young man has serious issues.
When he first showed up, he made me angry...now I just find his continual postings very sad.
I'll leave his comments up for others to see exactly what kind of person advocates this kind of thinking, but I do so with some reservations. It has now become obvious that this young man has some serious issues and allowing him a forum might not be in anyone's best interest.
This dirtbag whom you aptly rename "Pathetic Anglo" speaks only for himself. Well, these days regrettably he probably speaks for quite a large number of other loud, irritating talk radio-worshiping morons, if all the anti-Latino diatribes from this past June are any indication. But he certainly doesn't speak for all of us.
I'm a certifiably pale-faced blue-eyed white guy that Pathetic Anglo would probably also call an Anglo. (Which I'm not BTW, I'm ethnically German and I hate it when Minuteman morons like this jerk declare I'm an "Anglo" and should be a sympathizer with their bile. I'm German, not Anglo!) It's a damn shame that the 'stupid' neuron and the 'loudmouth' neuron seem to join up in the same brain, if we can deign to give that name for whatever mush PA has between his ears.
Many of my closest friends are Latino, I myself speak fluent Spanish, admire Latino culture in general and welcome the wonderful contributions that Latino people have made and continue to make in this country especially in the Southwest, where Latinos are nothing less than the founders of the cities that we today call 'US metropolises'. That's why, Pathetic Anglo, the cities and states around here have names like San Diego and Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Arizona, California, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara: That should be giving you a clue, although considering your 2nd-grade intelligence level you probably won't get it. (Oh, sorry, that was an insult to 2nd-graders.)
This guy reminds me of a lot of the other loser 'Anglo' guys (and unfortunately many women these days as well) in SoCal, often born here with silver spoons in their mouths, many times with college degrees but nonetheless ignorant of history and thinking they and their bigoted kind rule this place. They're not only dumb but lazy, too. They never bother to learn Spanish or relate to the Latinos around them, mucking around in their own little bubble. When it comes time to actually get a job, even though they know they ought to be picking up and practicing Spanish in a place like this to boost their hirability, they whine and moan about how the world doesn't conform to their own little Anglo fantasy of how it should be, refuse to learn Spanish even when their company pays them to do it, and eventually get fired for being such insufferable pricks.
Spanish as 'verbal diarrhea', Pathetic Anglo? Not only is Spanish one of the world's most beautiful languages- especially the forms from Latin America, which carry all the rhythms of that region's many peoples in their splendid variety- it's also very easy to learn for anybody with enough motivation to pull themselves up from their fat asses and learn a little about the rest of the world, which PA obviously lacks. It's also technically robust- many of the best civil and mechanical engineering specifications that we use even in a place like Cal Tech are written originally in Spanish, obtained from universities and firms out of Latin America!
Si, eso es la verdad, Anglo Patetico! El edificio que tu llenas con tu 'diarrea verbal'- es muy probable que debes gracias a un Latino quien originalmente escribio sus especificaciones para la ingeniería en español! Ay dios mio, se rompio totalmente su vista del mundo, eh? Que lastima, porque es obvio que nunca has tratado de entender ni un aspecto de los paises y culturas diferentes que tuyos tan angostos! Me compadezco con la otra gente que debe aguantar toda su estupidez!
That this prick would celebrate the Mexican-American War like that is particularly repulsive. That was a blatantly offensive, murderous war whose main purpose was to spread slavery into the Southwest, which Mexico had banned to the ire of both slaveowners and slavery profiteers in the North and South United States alike. Even the US generals themselves knew how repugnant that war was. General Ulysses S. Grant himself called it the most wicked thing he ever had to take part in!
This guy even has a Website if you click on his blogger handle where he elaborates on his spew: 'On the side I'm a scholar of World War II, the Spanish-American War and the Mexican War-- great victories by the English-speaking peoples against their corrupt and dangerous opponents in both hemispheres. I'm an especially big fan of the Mexican War which is probably the single greatest victory of the Anglosphere against the Hispanic garbage-- oh, I'm sorry, am I supposed to say "Latino" garbage these days-- that continues to press on our border today, and proud to be one of the modern Anglo "occupiers" of their precious Aztlan.' Asshole!
I've always thought that states like California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas *should* be bilingual and bicultural from the earliest days of school and in the public sphere in general for this reason alone. Though as I've learned over the years, Guadalupe-Hidalgo and the other treaties and laws emerging from the Mexican-American War pretty much require this anyway! (It's called learning history, Pathetic Anglo-- you might want to consider it someday.)
Sorry to ramble, I just hate it when these narrow-minded bigots try to act like they speak for all of us (and also when they call people like Germans, Italians, Russians or Irish "Anglos" which we absolutely are not). It's a damn shame that this "occupier" has befouled Aztlan with his presence for 23 years. Although an awful lot of people seem to identify with this moron these days, many of us don't-- I certainly don't!
Espero que podemos luchar juntos contra las ideas odiosas que gritan los estupidos como Anglo Patetico. Yo personalmente, y muchos otros como yo, verdaderamente les damos la bienvenida al fortaleciendo y floreciendo de espanol y la cultura Latino en California y otros lugares en el Suroeste. A los Latinos debemos el agradecimiento para fundar estas ciudades y pueblos al principio, y por eso tienen el derecho absoluto de promover y celebrar su propia cultura, en espanol y en general aqui! Ojala que todos aqui tengan un buen dia!
Hello bleeding-heart America, While I do agree with some of what Mr. Anglo said, he wasn't exactly administering poetic justice. To assume he is a silver spoon fed loser, would be akin to his assumption that Latinos are Garbage. Yes, spanish is a "beautiful" language, but so is English! It would be nice if more "beaners" would make a sincere effort to learn it. However, with whole communities able to not only function , but thrive without ever having to learn more than a few token phrases in english, linguistics takes a back seat to the reclamation of ]aztlan[ and living the good life that America has to offer. I pay taxes out of every paycheck I get to support illegal aliens. Meanwhile my 4 year old daughter has no medical insurance, i recieve no aid or food stamps, and worst of all she is the ONLY White child in her school!! Her ENTIRE school. (yes i live in ]aztlan[) Actually there are only 2 other non-hispanic children enrolled! I AM low-income, and in my county below the poverty line.I never attended college, nor had any interest in that particular arena of perceived knowledge. Why should I want to soak up the vast wasteland of misinformation sprayed into the minds of our children from the cradle to the grave? Illegal immigrants take yobs that Americans won't? That, people, is a load of feces. Their unfair competition for low-paying jobs has made it even harder for Black Americans to find and maintain jobs.Now, instead of joining a gang, selling drugs or working fast food and menial jobs, more young Blacks are left with only the first 2 options.I am referring to lower class Blacks and those coming from the inner cities.Instead of going to college, a viable option for many young Blacks was trade schools, and training programs. These options are now becoming the lifeblood of the second generation illegals. Even college scholarships are being awarded to the offspring of illegals at a staggering rate. Our country is now importing thousands upon thousands of high tech jobs from India and other countries where the schools are there to teach science and math and economics, instead of playing catch-up and trying to teach "beaner" children english. The children that are trying to learn actual real-world skills take a back seat to Paco learning to count to ten in English. Classrooms are now overflowing with more spanglish than English. Class sizes have dramatically increased and our math and science scores are abyssmal when compared to even some so-called third world countries(who by the way ARE contributing brilliant and educated tech workers). My child will have to fight tooth and nail just to secure an education, let alone a scholarship! Wow, I guess since white people ARE a minority in California, she should qualify for some sort of table scrap.Not that I will teach her to beg or bow down to the hordes of invaders that stream over over border at an ever increasing rate.I encourage ALL AMERICANS to really think about what giving up our land and jobs and communities and LIVES to foreigners will ever get us. I will tell you:Poor, Hungry,Browbeaten,Chastised,Subjugated,Enslaved,Discouraged,Disheartened,and downright SCREWED!! And by the way don't take this as an anti-mexican >blarg< It is pro-American. Thanks to all the legal immigrants who had made this country great, until "we" gave it away.Thank you to all of the Americans who have died in wars to defend this nation, and to install the American hypocrisy known as democracy in places that did not want or need our help.If we as a c ountry were only more concerned about OUR well-being, than every body else in the whole frigglin world, than maybe this country would not be hated by so many. This "we have it so good, we should help everybody in the world that is so underpriveleged, booh hoo poor them" attitude that is so prevalent is eroding our economy, and has obliterated any national solidarity that once existed.The fabric of society is so torn that no sewing machine could ever fix it.This multi-cultural melting pot experiment has failed, and most White people have lost touch with the culture of their ancestors, and have adopted this pop-culture bastardization of everybody else, that they have been brainwashed into thinking that being White and proud of it is somehow not only immoral, but actually evil. But it is okay and commendable for other races to celebrate their culture openly, and with kudos from society. I am proud of my German-Irish blood, and anyone who thinks my kin haven't suffered should pick up some actual history books(not the ones from the public schools) They however found a way through their adversity and not only overcame,but thrived in their country.They found ways to make their country better and prospered through hard work and dedication to their people.Yes it is true that many German and Irish people immigrated to America(as well as chinese ,african, etc.)and built our country, some in less than ideal circumstances.So think about the hard work YOUR ancestors had to do, and ask your self,"do i want to dishonor them and give it all away?" If you do,then you should swallow a pistol!! I've got MY guns and am ready to fight for my country just like my grandfather, his grandfather, my uncles and my father did. How many illegal immigrants were drafted to fight in Vietnam? How many are fighting this pointless debacle in Iraq and Afghanistan? ZILCH!!! So, in closing I would like to say :HOW MANY DROWNING PEOPLE CAN THIS LIFEBOAT SAVE BEFORE IT SINKS AND WE ALL PERISH?
for angry America
It's obvious you never attended college because you don't have any understanding of economics, why America needs immigrants for several reasons.
As far as I know, America has already been settled for over a century.We need immigrants?WHY?! No, i think you mean corporate America is drunk on the money they rake in by importing cheap-ass mexican labor. Meanwhile our poor get brushed to the side so we can deal with "real" poverty issues, like how to make spics comfortable as possible in a country not belonging to them. Did you attend college, or did all of this incredible knowledge of the English language, and simple sentence structure come with you across the border? Also, did you somehow miss the point that "immigration" is not the issue here? The issue is the invasion of America by third world rejects such as yourself! Someday soon America will be worse off than Mexico, and maybe you and your rat-people will scurry back on home!
Mexico is the worst country in the world. The rat-people that make up the population are disgusting sub-humans that won't even flush their toilet paper down the toilet. They have absolutely NO respect for the superior American people that feed their diseased-ridden wives and children with the taxes that they pay using their OWN social security numbers. Fortunately, Mexicans are a very stupid breed of sub-humans and their lack of intelligence will be their downfall when the next civil war occurs. One white male is worth a thousand dirty rat-people, and when the first shot is fired, the bean-eating scum will see the wrath of the superior European Americans unfold before their very eyes.
Mexicans are notorious for their uncanny ability to lose every war they've ever attempted to fight in. Their incredibly low IQ average is most likely responsible for this, for these cockroaches are a very stupid, weak and feeble breed of people. They are usually very tiny, which is most likely due to their very small way of thinking. A dog has more to offer to society than a dirty beaner. They do a very, very poor job of trying to speak a white man's language (Spanish) and are too stupid to realize that they didn't invent it themselves. They resent the fact that the white man is superior to them in every way and have no shame in living off of his wallet.
Angry America is 100% right. My son is the only white kid in his class as well. He goes to the same school I did 30 years ago. In one generation, the school went from middle class America to a third world disgrace. No other child in his class can speak American (English), and he has to sit through third world gibberish for 9 out of every 10 minutes while the teacher tries to make all the little beaners happy. None of the kids are children of legal immigrants and their parents are all criminals living here illegally. The white man is getting really, really close to snapping. It's just a matter of time before he says, "That's enough!" And the beaners are going to see the consequences that will occur for their unholy actions.
oh boo hoo hoo! I'm a white American and I'm so mad that I can't understand Spanish. Oh boo hoo hoo! I used to live fat off of stolen land and exploiting people in far off lands and now they are coming to live in my neighborhoods,and the police and the klan cant come around and kick them out like they used to. Oh boo hoo hoo, no one respects my obvious white supremacy, now I have to work for a living just like everyone else. oh boo hoo hoo, cry me a river! When did the Whitey 'mericans because such p**sies that they get soooo mad about the "invasion" of the land that they conquered fair and square. You would think someone was raping their mothers with all the outrage!
You, my Mexican friend, are a dirty vagina. Now I have to work???? Are you kidding me, beaner-boy? The white man has worked harder than any other race, which is why we are able to make it without welfare like you. You are a blood-sucking loser that NEEDS the white man to survive.....
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