Andrea Widburg always has insightful and hard-hitting pieces about the decline of the US and the West. She reflects upon the case of economist Milton Friedman, who believed in open borders and the free movement of people, just like any other goods and services in the globalised economy. But Friedman did not support giving welfare or citizenship to the immigrants who would pour in through the open borders, as this would crash the system. Not so for the Left, who want to give welfare to the world, making everyone equal in crippling poverty. And allowing voting rights to these immigrants would in turn create a lobby group to increase welfare to these low-skill, low-income, and generally lower IQ immigrants, which will create a positive feedback cycle increasing the welfare burden.
According to a recent study by the Center for Immigration Studies, the welfare "utopia" of the Left, or if you prefer, apocalypse, is almost here:
The 2022 SIPP indicates that 54 percent of households headed by immigrants — naturalized citizens, legal residents, and illegal immigrants — used one or more major welfare program. This compares to 39 percent for U.S.-born households.
The rate is 59 percent for non-citizen households (e.g. green card holders and illegal immigrants).
Compared to households headed by the U.S.-born, immigrant-headed households have especially high use of food programs (36 percent vs. 25 percent for the U.S.-born), Medicaid (37 percent vs. 25 percent for the U.S.-born), and the Earned Income Tax Credit (16 percent vs. 12 percent for the U.S.-born).
Our best estimate is that 59 percent of households headed by illegal immigrants, also called the undocumented, use at least one major program. We have no evidence this is due to fraud. Among legal immigrants we estimate the rate is 52 percent.
This growing welfare burden, even ignoring the crime and election threats, is enough if trends continue, to sink the United States. Take this as a lesson for the rest of the West.
America's greatest economist ever was Milton Friedman. (Incidentally, the second greatest, a living treasure, is Thomas Sowell, who learned from Milton Friedman.) In an era before terrorists travelled across national borders, Friedman was a believer in the free movement of people. However, he was not a believer in giving immigrants welfare or votes, for he understood that combining these things would break the system. So, would it surprise you to know that a significant majority of people entering America under Biden's illegal open border policy are on welfare?
Wall Street has always liked the idea of open borders because it sees people chasing jobs, thereby increasing wealth. A certain sector has also liked the idea of unlettered immigrants who can easily be exploited, but that's another subject entirely.
Another group that likes open borders is leftists. As this UMinn professor made clear, they loath America, and a country without borders isn't a country at all.
This is great for Biden because his illegal open border caters to both demographics, Wall Street and the hard left. It's not often that you get a political two-fer quite like that.
Milton Friedman, who believed in the free flow of capital, also liked open borders. However, he had a very firm caveat: "It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state." More than that, as Robert Rector explained (and Mitt Romney inartfully tried to explain, too), there's a problem when those receiving welfare vote:
There is a rough one-to-one fiscal balance between low-skill immigrant families and upper-middle-class families. It takes the entire net tax payments (taxes paid minus benefits received) of one college-educated family to pay for the net benefits received by one low-skill immigrant family. Even Julian Simon, the godfather of open-border advocates, acknowledged that imposing such a burden on taxpayers was unreasonable, stating, "immigrants who would be a direct economic burden upon citizens through the public coffers should have no claim to be admitted" into the nation.
There is also a political dimension to the transfer state. Elections in modern societies are, to a considerable degree, referenda on the magnitude of future income redistribution. An immigration policy which grants citizenship to vast numbers of low-skill, low-income immigrants not only creates new beneficiaries for government transfers, but new voters likely to support even greater transfers in the future.
The grant of citizenship is a transfer of political power. Access to the U.S. ballot box also provides access to the American taxpayer's bank account. This is particularly problematic with regard to low-skill immigrants. Within an active redistributionist state, as Friedman understood, unlimited immigration can threaten limited government.
So we've got open borders and a leftist push for non-citizen voting (along with child and felon voting), meaning we're two-thirds of the way there.
But what about that welfare component? Well, we're almost two-thirds of the way there, too, according to a study from the Center for Immigration Studies:
The 2022 SIPP indicates that 54 percent of households headed by immigrants — naturalized citizens, legal residents, and illegal immigrants — used one or more major welfare program. This compares to 39 percent for U.S.-born households.
The rate is 59 percent for non-citizen households (e.g. green card holders and illegal immigrants).
Compared to households headed by the U.S.-born, immigrant-headed households have especially high use of food programs (36 percent vs. 25 percent for the U.S.-born), Medicaid (37 percent vs. 25 percent for the U.S.-born), and the Earned Income Tax Credit (16 percent vs. 12 percent for the U.S.-born).
Our best estimate is that 59 percent of households headed by illegal immigrants, also called the undocumented, use at least one major program. We have no evidence this is due to fraud. Among legal immigrants we estimate the rate is 52 percent.
At this rate, in a very short time, we'll have achieved the broken borders dream of Wall Street and the left. Wall Street will be fine because its members are globalists and because, to the extent the government keeps growing, they've already entered into a partnership with the government (i.e., fascism). And, of course, leftists will have their dream of America's collapse.
Meanwhile, ordinary Americans will soon find themselves living out that leftist dream, which will inevitably result in a failed state. If you want to know what that looks like, it won't be a socialist paradise. It will be South Africa, Uganda, or another of the earth's desperate, famine-ridden, violent hellholes."