I dunno, I like the idea of taxing the 1+ trillion dollars earned by people on the black market by taxing the stuff they buy with their illicitly earned money. Plus we can tax illegal immigrants without them fearing INS swooping down on them for filing.

Well now we have a national sales tax combined with our full income tax rates...

I don't see our government getting rid of income tax, but i'm sure they will add in a national sales tax for everything at some point. :(

If it was a swap i'de be down :)

Valid points. On immigration, I think most of the laws and enforcement are stupid. If it weren't for the racist policies against central and south americans, we wouldn't have any real issues to enforce. My only gripe is that immigrants shouldn't be allowed to work for crazy low pay compared to what a natural or naturalized citizen would, on the books.

Great points that I had never thought of, Scott. I just think it is the most "fair".

Would you prefer they not work at all?

I'de prefer they work in their own countries :lol:

While i feel we should up our Quotas of immigrants, i also feel we should kick out the illegals. There are many immigrants who went through all the hoops, submitted paper work / back ground checks and are in, working, paying taxes, but are waiting for full Status. Like my friend Jose from Argentina .

Its just not fair to Jose who is doing everything fairly, that others sneak in get services get a job pay no taxes, and create a negative stereo type that affects him. :~:

How do illegals get away without paying taxes? Their employers just pay them under the table? I'd think it would be far easier to bust the employers than the employees...

I had a different friend Jose, who was here illegally (3 or 4 times) and worked for the fire fighters department. I'm pretty sure he paid taxes there, but other jobs he worked he didn't. he kept getting caught, deported, and then he would come back...

one of the jobs he took was at a mexican restaruant operated by hispanics and he just told them he was here illegal and they kept him off the books but didn't tell the other employees.

He was actually a piece of shit and i got into a fight with him on the 4th of July. he hated america and americans and was trash talking America on the 4th of july and i wasn't having it.

Illegals (in my experience) suck ass. but legal immigrants tend to be quite cool. (again in my experience) your actual results my vary

Actually XXX's parents are way cool (here illegally) and they pay their taxes and own / operate a business.

Anyone know if Obama-Care will cover illegals ? ? :(

The problem with so-called illegal immigrants is that they are products of racist policies set by the state department decades ago.

And I don't see how paying them twice as much as they make now will give them incentive to not work. :confused:

Like Cody said, it's an issue for employers, not the immigrants.

It bugs the shit out of me when people who like to talk about the Founding Fathers in political discussions see anything other than felony convictions or treasonous behavior as a bar to becoming an American.

I think our immigration laws need to change, also. I have a friend here illegally who CANNOT become legal. He/his parents have tried, but they were denied, because the INS has already met their quota for Mexicans that they let in, from what I understand of what happened. He goes to school, will become an engineer, and will attempt to work in this country. Why can't we let him stay here legally?

The only beef I have with illegals is the same beef I have with people here legally: I don't like the ones that are here just to abuse the system. Besides that, we should have an open door policy, IMO.

Exactly. So back to my point earlier about not letting employers pay them less then minimum wage and/or under the table- where is the disincentive for them to work? Legitimizing the cheap labor that comes in solves nearly all the problems that currently arise from illegal immigration. And the ones that get a little worse (slight increase in crime and social program cost) already have mechanisms in place for dealing with them.

The problem I have with paying them more, is that they are willing to work for it. If they are paid more, the cost of everything goes up.

So what? Same thing happens when you or I gets a college degree and a promotion.

I don't think I've ever paid another $1 for a qdoba burrito because you got promoted. When companies have to pay more money, they pass that cost on to customers, is what I mean by that.

Right. And I don't mind paying $.10 more for a head of lettuce when it means solving the problems created by illegal immigration on a large scale, which was created by bad policy.

This is one of those issues where economics is not the primary concern in a policy debate.