A vast majority of illegals here have not crossed teh sorter border. They have overstayed their visas after entering through ports of entry.
If you are worried about illegals here costing us money, you should focus on other factors - which, BTW< Trump is doing. In country apprehensions are up. But the wall won’t help him there.
Of course it was higher, all the competition had been bombed out of existence.
I don’t know if the statement “a vast majority” is accurate or not since you didn’t provide a source to back up your claims. I guess I will have to research that. As it stands right now your claim is without any merit.
Regardless, simply because a portion of illegal immigration is the result of Visa overstays does not mean that we should not secure our southern border which currently is wide open.
Even if your statement is true, and the vast majority of illegal immigration stems from Visa overstays, I would argue that the remaining portion of illegal immigration that stems from crossing at the southern border still incurs a massive cost to the US taxpayer on an annual basis.
The one time cost of a wall to reduce this problem is beneficial to the taxpayer. Now, explain how it isn’t.
Correct. And that would skew the metric you cited.
Here you go.
re: your last question - sure, walls work. And I have no problem with adding a coupe hundred of feet to our existing border barriers.
I just don’t think we need a 25B giant wall like Trump proposed and is (was? ) fighting for.
He got a few Billion this time around - use that up, and then let’s talk about adding more. But a giant, border to border wall is foolish and won’t return dividends.
Also, the continuing decline in illegal crossings proves the methods we are using now - walls, and other tings - is working.
I would be open to discussing trading real worker reform and other policies that benefit the middle class for welfare reform. Would you?
I don’t see how you’ll have to explain what that has to do with the percent of GDP federal revenue was.
Give an example. Not sure what you mean by worker reform.
GDP relative to the overall economy was expanding faster, meaning the denominator in teh equation was relatively higher than it is today.
I really haven’t thought this out much…but higher minimum wage, regulations that favor unions…
Slightly tangental, and sorry, but I won’t be online much longer…but was just thinking about really blighted areas like Camden, NJ and Appalachia towns…wht about federal relocation and training dollars? Why don’t we pay for these people to move where the jobs ar instead of paying them to survive in blighted areas? really haven’t thought it through, but…maybe?
Maybe. Fair warning…as an engineer, I know that negative feedback is essential to a stable and useful system. When humans are part of the system, that means pain for those who do the wrong thing, the dumb thing, the lazy thing. It is no lack of compassion. It is essentially “tough love” for Americans.
I understand that reaction, and of course, have felt it myself.
But as an engineer, I’m sure you recognize complicated systems when your see them. America is of course complicated. And as such, I don’t think there is a simple answer here.
“Spend more on welfare” won’t work.
“Cut welfare spending” won’t work…
It’s a complicated system…
I’m looking more and more to reproduce the success of our past. that makes sense to me. Not an easy answer, but one that makes sense to me.
Exactly when did that happen???
WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, are still on the books and we are still paying interest on the debt as well as adding more debt every year.
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt.htm
Sorry, not getting it, no matter how fast it was growing the percent of GDP doesn’t change.
If the GDP is larger, the denominator is larger, and all percentages will be smaller.
Hard to compare the size of GDP from such different time periods though.
That little inflation factor is difficult to factor into GDP. Real GDP actual is difficult to compare as it includes government spending as well as spending from borrowing. Government spending skews the number. Imagine what GDP would look like without 4 trillion is spending and borrowing. Yes the government spending generates activity however it’s artificial as the 800 billion borrowed one day will need to be paid back and will be subtracted from GDP.
I think you maybe slept through math class.
If it was offered.
Aren’t percentages wonderful? You can make them into any argument you want.
This is reaching new levels of crisis. It looks like Trump is going to make a move soon, and the sooner the better! This insanity has got to stop!