On immigration, the Register forgets the welfare state

The U.S. welfare state is pretty big, devouring about 40% of the U.S. economy. Yet the Orange County Register’s commentary page doesn’t even mention it in today’s editorial encouraging open borders, republished from sister paper the Brownsville Herald in Texas, which ran it on Independence Day.

It’s eloquent about how Americans have formed one nation from diverse peoples. But it doesn’t point out that immigrants vote about 70% Democratic, a proportion that doesn’t seem to be changing. Moreover, the Democratic Party of previous waves of immigrants, those before the 1924 limitations, then was the small government party, while the Republican Party then was the big government party. By contrast, today’s Democratic Party, in general, favors more government than the Republican Party.

Yes, I know that under President Bush and the Republican congresses of 2001-2006 the government grew at an unprecedented rate. But only the Republicans produce such men as Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who favors abolishing almost all the government, and California state Sen. Tom McClintock, the state’s fiscal watchdog for 25 years. The Democrats just don’t have anybody close to that anymore, at least on domestic politics. (The libertarian Paul, by the way, favors limiting immigration, including “Physically secure our borders and coastlines.” )

The 2012 U.S. Census debacle

This problem will become acute in 2012, the first election after the next U.S. Census, when California becomes a one-party state, with Democrats controlling two-thirds of both houses of the Legislature. As recently as 1994, Republicans won both houses in Sacramento. But the massive increase in immigration has pushed state voting patterns dramatically into the Democratic camp. The change means that in, in 2012, Democrats will have the power to abolish Proposition 13, the property tax limitation measure, and raise the sales tax and the state income and capital gains taxes to levels higher than they ever have been.

The welfare state argument is the reason why I changed my own opinions on limiting immigration. Up until a decade ago, I was a big open-borders guy. Then I saw how too much immigration in too short a time meant I would be living in a state, and maybe a country, with one-party control of government. And that one party would favor massive increases in government and taxes.

At the national level, the welfare state’s costs are going to rise rapidly because the new immigrants have come in such large numbers, and work at such low-paying jobs, that it cannot be sustained. A Heritage Foundation study found that giving amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens would cost $2.6 trillion. That’s $2,600,000,000,000.00 of your tax money. It just makes sense that immigrants, who in general have much lower levels of education and job skills than do current citizens, won’t be able to support a welfare state that until now has been supported by workers with much higher levels of job skills that pay more on the world market.

As the late Milton Friedman said, you can’t have both open borders and unlimited immigration.

The Register/Brownsville editorial lectures us, “Our strength – and our birthright – stems from a homogeneity of purpose and ideals, not of patronage, and forged by blood that has been willingly shed in its defense, not the blood that has been passed on by generations of bluebloods.” Actually, it’s the bluebloods — the Bushes and Kennedys — who favor open immigration because it brings in cheap labor to boost corporate profits, while the rest of us — the non-blue bloods — pay the tab in higher taxes.

Monopolist Mexico

Why should American taxpayers pick up the tab because other countries, especially Mexico, can’t get their economic act together, as I explained in a Register column last year? Mexico’s horrible government policies were just dramatized when the notorious telecom monopolist Carlos “No Competition” Slim just became the world’s richest man, at $67.8 billion, surpassing Bill Gates.

Slim made his money using government to limit the competition. Again, why should we Americans pay for the Mexican government’s granting of a monopoly to Slim, which means he gets all the money by robbing common Mexicans, giving them another reason to go to El Norte?

The Register editorial also opposes “physical barriers between the United States and Mexico.” But the last I looked, the Register has a “physical barrier” around it, as it has for decades. A physical barrier is a fence.

And we Americans have a saying: Fences make good neighbors.