Rick Santorum and the culture of abortion; what's wrong with anchor babies?

Even if abortion was illegal, that doesn’t mean that women would be having more babies.  The real question that Mr. Santorum and other Republicans need to answer is why are they so adamant about deporting anchor babies and denying amnesty to millions of unauthorized immigrants when we are in such desperate need of people to fill our demographic hole?  Immigration would certainly be more of a sure thing for  increasing the working population in the U.S. than forcing women to have more babies than they want could be.   

A larger population would not only address the issue of Social Security but also the national debt.  Increasing the number of people would reduce the per capita debt. 

In a happy coincidence, nothing would cure our sick housing sector more than a sharp increase in our under forty population.  There is no business sector, in fact, that would not benefit from having the population sharply increased.   

The pick-up in consumer demand from increased immigration would be the signal employers need to think about hiring new workers.  The complement of more diverse job skills from increased immigration would make more business plans feasible and that would bring further increases in hiring.  That’s how an increase in immigration would help to put our busted employment puzzle back together.  Going in the opposite direction, towards less population, holds no future for the United States.  

the cost of immigration

      

What is the cost of immigration?   A better question might be what is the cost of bringing up the next generation of U.S. citizens?  Most estimates that put poor immigrants as a drag on the economy are misleading.  For the cost they present the average cost per person of public goods.  Do we assume that for each unauthorized immigrant removed there would be a savings of that average cost?  That would be unlikely.  The real cost and savings would not be the average cost but the marginal cost.  In most cases of public goods that would be close to zero.  With fewer people and not much savings, the average per person cost for public goods would likely increase.  Since the crackdown on unauthorized immigration began almost four years ago the average per person cost of most public goods has gone up. 

For most states, federal taxes paid average about 8,000 dollars per person.  California provides twenty percent of federal revenues and it also has twenty percent of the population.  In Missouri, federal taxes average about 8,000 per person as well, but the population is much smaller. 

Social Security has been particularly impacted by the loss of millions of low income workers.  The connection between not enough workers in ratio to retirees could not be more directly related to immigration.  Having people contribute to the system with no expectation or claim to future benefits was likely the best deal on bailing out Social Security we will ever get.  Having a lot more authorized immigrants might be a close second. 

Outside the realm of public goods, immigrants offer exceptional stimulus because the process of setting up a household is expensive.  One million new immigrants spending 10,000 to set up a household during the first year in the United States would create a 10 billion dollar stimulus for the economy.  

immigration and the economy

         

In nineteen eighty-six, the two most prosperous decades in the history of the world were set in motion when President Ronald Reagan signed the amnesty for millions of unauthorized immigrants.  A decade later, unauthorized immigration was at an all time high.  Consumer demand exploded.  Who needs more than new immigrants?  Who has more irrational exuberance? 

There were billions of dollars freed by having all the immigrant labor to make and do things for us cheaper than we were willing to make or do them for ourselves.  The situation reeked of huge opportunities for anyone able to envision what all these people might want and a way to provide it.   

While arguing that high levels of illegal immigration caused the low unemployment as rates fell to levels that had once been thought unattainable, might seem counterintuitive, the truth is that for almost two decades even people without immigration status who spoke little or no English could get a job.  Now things are much different.  The big question is what happened?   

After the defeat of comprehensive immigration reform in the summer of 2007, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff spoke about an impending crackdown on unauthorized immigrants, especially in the workplace.  He warned there would be economic hardship.  Many people had argued that getting rid of ‘illegal’ workers would make more jobs for legal workers. 

We started e-verifying about three years ago and millions of people self-deported.  Unemployment, however, is almost twice as high as it was just prior to the start of the crackdown four years ago.  The sudden drop in demand for goods and services the exodus of the self-deporting caused resulted in widespread job losses.  The worst damage to the economy was from the way the exodus diminished the array of job skills in our economy.  The loss of millions of hard-to-replace key workers and all of their hard-to-find job skills was a huge jolt to the economy.  The disruption was tremendous.  It turns out that people are not interchangeable.  Many businesses had to cut back or close operations.  Most of the jobs ’illegal’ workers had been doing were eliminated as were many of the jobs legal workers were doing.  That’s why unemployment is so high now. 

Our standard of living has fallen because we are no longer making as much from so little as before.  We suffered a sharp drop in demand for housing causing prices to plummet, especially in regions of the U.S. where most of the unauthorized immigrants had been living. 

Fiat money is a great convenience but a poor substitute for human action, as the Federal Reserve is finding out.  Being a magnet for cheap immigrant labor may be our most valuable comparative advantage.  People are good at coming up with new ways of making things that other people want.  Things that other people want become supply creating new demand for the creator(s).  Something others want is like a leverage to command new demand.  Value is subjective.  With more people, more things have more value.   

The best thing about immigration in particular is the diversity it provides.  That diversity creates a lot of new and different.  More than just stylish fun, new and different is the business model of our nation.  It is a model of making even more from perhaps a bit less.  Making more from less is the hallmark of capitalism.