11 Comments

America's fiscal problems are politicians making decisions to further their careers at the expense of taxpayers. They don't treat root causes, they react to symptoms and only make decisions that make them look better. The pandemic is the perfect example. They catered to people's fears, did not follow science (but pretended to) and ruined the country. The solution to fiscal problems is some austerity, starting with the politicians.

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If the goal here’s to convince anti-immigration paleolibertarians (a noble one, to be sure), I worry that “immigration can help prolong the life of Social Security” could backfire since probably most libertarians oppose the existence of SS.

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A country is more than just an economy with a bunch of citizens serving as employees. It has history, language, patriotism, mutual trust, boundaries etc, etc. This article is so narrowly Keynesian that it reminds me of the blinkered view of our public health officials from 2020 onwards (remember those folks who shut down the economy for reasons having to do with their wish to "stop the spread"?). America can definitely do without immigrants if we just stop measuring everything against a money measure.

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Some things are more important than money. The culture is important and that is why we don't want immigrants from non-western countries.

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Make the Republicans pick our fruits and vegetables!

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How elite of you.

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I did that as a kid.

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Immigrants are low IQ net fiscal drains even before considering political and cultural impact.

The more immigrants we let in the worse this will get, both scalar and because the marginal immigrant is even worse.

But yeah if we ignore culture, genetics, and politics we can invent some pretend scenario where it will do all the things you mentioned.

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America needs more skilled people across many different fields. That should be part of the immigration criteria, as well as education and training for current citizens.

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You mean rather than just allow them to pour across the border indiscriminately? This is going to backfire greatly. People who came across proper channels are furious.

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You are correct. If Congress wants to do something they can look at changing the limits on family based immigration, or the H1 program. Also, why are there country limits, why does an H1B Dr or other professional from India have to wait 15 plus years to get a GC. This is what needs fixing. Trying to place limits on illegal immigration will be meaningless as the cartels will simply adjust to the new numbers and limit the amount of people they allow across.

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