Amnesty Proposals will Cost Taxpayers Trillions

Heritage Foundation policy expert, Robert Rector, is estimating that the two proposals offered by the Senate Gang of Eight and Pres. Obama earlier this week will cost taxpayers trillions of dollars. He said the proposals are similar to the failed 2007 amnesty bill, which he estimated at the time to cost $2.5 trillion in Medicare and Social Security alone.

“[The proposal] seems to be virtually identical to the 2007 bill and would be extremely costly to the U.S. taxpayers,” Rector told the Daily Caller. “Granting amnesty or legal status to illegals will generate costs in Medicare and Social Security alone of $2.5 trillion above any taxes paid in.”

Rector estimates that 75-80 percent of illegal aliens have no more than a high school degree, so they’re likely to draw more in services from the government than pay in.

“It’s not like they pay in a lot when they are young, and they take it out when they’re old. They are in fiscal deficit every year of their lives,” he said. “For example, the typical household headed by someone who does not have a high school degree, as I said in that paper in 2007, got back then $30,000 in benefits and paid $10,000 [in income and consumption taxes]. It’s a net cost of $20,000. That would be significantly higher now.”

Rector said he’s updating his study from 2007 that estimated the costs of an amnesty. He expects the figure to be higher because of the new healthcare law and he thinks the illegal alien population is larger now than it was in 2007.

For more, see the Daily Caller.