The Heritage Foundation has a completely bullshit study of how much illegal aliens are costing us. Supposedly, the are costing us $2.2 trillion. However

This is over ten years. I’m getting sick and tired of this business of projecting things over five or ten years and proclaiming them gigantic.

As Heritage itself will attest, this is almost entirely due to our progressive tax system. Illegal aliens tend to be in the lower income brackets and lower income brackets pay very little taxes while consuming enormous benefits. I don’t see that 12 million illegal aliens are necessarily worse than 30 million people living in “poverty”.

Here’s what makes me doubt the whole smash. The study bases this on 2/3 of the illegals. But what of the other 1/3? Are they revenue neutral? Revenue positive?

And finally, it’s a huge mistake to confound government revenue with national revenue. Are the illegals going to produce $2.2 trillion in goods and services in that period of time? If they’re paying $9,000 per annum in taxes, that means they are growing the economy by at least $40,000 per year. That’s $4 trillion they are contributing to the economy.

There’s another Number in the Dark out there — the supposed $400 billion tax hike the Democrats are giving us. First, this is over five years, so it’s actually an $80 billion tax hike. Second, they are not raising taxes, they are allowing the tax cuts to expire. And third, who was it who gave us expiring taxes in the first place? Who was it who, rather than give us a permanent tax cut, gave us a perpetual issue to bash Democrats with? Who was it who had a six year spending orgy?

Why, geewhillikers, that would be the Republicans!

They’ve been caught by their own cynical political ploy. Or rather, the America taxpayer has. Yes, the Democrats should extend the tax cuts for “the rich”. I’m getting that tax cut and I’m not rich. But the GOP have only themselves to blame. They empowered the Democrats, in every way imaginable. The Dems must be chuckling now. Thanks to the Republicans, they can raise taxes without a single vote.