Comment by Analemma_

Comment by Analemma_ 4 days ago

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You could use this exact argument to say nobody should ever have children-- children also raise inflation, home prices, etc. And the majority of your property taxes go specifically towards programs which would be unneeded if nobody had any children.

The fact that naive anti-immigration arguments can be copy-pasted unchanged into arguments against having children is a sign that maybe those arguments are stupid. To understand why, you might start with the fact that immigrants also purchase goods and services, and hence pay the salaries of the ~70% of people in this country employed in some way or another by consumer spending.

mc32 4 days ago

Children are future taxpayers the majority with parents who were not a tax burden --net positive tax contribution. People without Children benefit from the taxes paid by the children of people who rear children -i.e. people without children aren't "cashing out" their tax contributed retirement --that contribution went to other retirees.

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  • [removed] 4 days ago
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  • repstosb 4 days ago

    And citizens benefit from the taxes paid by non-citizen immigrants, whether documented or undocumented. Not just income and payroll taxes that might be dodged by under-the-table arrangements, but sales taxes, property taxes (perhaps paid indirectly via rent to a taxpaying landlord), the consumer share (nearly 100%) of tariffs, etc. And much of that tax base is spent on benefits and services that are not accessible to taxpaying non-citizens.

    So from that standpoint, immigrants are a /better/ economic deal for the public than children are. At the end of the day, though, it shouldn't matter where people were born if they're contributing to society, and the grandparent post is 100% correct that the whole debate is stupid.

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    • irishcoffee 4 days ago

      Sales tax is actually paid by the vendor, they just pass the cost along. The landlord pays the property tax, they just pass the cost along.

      It is absolutely impossible for an undocumented alien to meaningfully contribute towards their tax burden in any meaningful way.

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      • lovich 4 days ago

        Oh, in that case no w-2 employee pays income taxes, their employer does. I guess we’re all just mooches on society and only the company owners do anything.

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      • int_19h 4 days ago

        > Sales tax is actually paid by the vendor, they just pass the cost along. The landlord pays the property tax, they just pass the cost along.

        This is sophistry. Ultimately the tax is paid by the person that brings their money to the table.

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  • 15155 4 days ago

    The vast majority of adults and their children will never pay their tax burden proportionately.

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    • irishcoffee 4 days ago

      How do you figure that?

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      • 15155 4 days ago

        Grade school math. Look at income tax receipts: the top 5% pay >61% of all income taxes.

        You can try and split hairs with "sales taxes" and "payroll taxes" and try to shimmy things into some anti-capitalist stance ("but the companies benefit from their labor!!!," "renters pay property taxes indirectly!"), but the overwhelming majority of all tax payments come from a small percentage of individuals.

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  • milch 4 days ago

    Immigrants pay social security taxes, unemployment taxes, ... that they also will never be able to benefit from. Those are purely for the benefit of US citizens

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    • mc32 4 days ago

      There is a good case for vetted legal immigration (there is need and they fill that unmet need), no question; however, that should not be at the expense of the local population, regardless of country. In other words, the locals should not suffer a depressed job market because of immigration. The whole reason for a state to exist is to first and foremost look after the wellbeing of its citizens that elect the bodies of government.

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      • milch 4 days ago

        I'm not sure where you're getting that from in my comment. I never said US citizens should want H1Bs for everyone with zero vetting, only that they are a net tax positive.

        It's not a dichotomy of maintaining the status quo or getting rid of H1b completely. At least in big tech companies, they do follow labor market tests and prevailing wage tests and so on that are designed to vet that there is an unmet need and that visa holders aren't underpaid. I won't deny there are visa mills and consultancies that game the system and pretty much explicitly just hire cheap foreign labor, but this is a thread about H1B in the context of Amazon layoffs, not InfoSys layoffs.

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    • Saline9515 4 days ago

      It depends if the immigrant is hired because the native worker is deemed too expensive. In this case, it contributes to reducing contributions through wage suppression.

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      • milch 4 days ago

        If you have access to data that shows big tech is preferentially hiring visa holders over US citizens you should get on that class action lawsuit right away. That's probably hundreds of thousands or even millions per person in lost wages, and even after lawyers take their 30% cut, that's still a sizable chunk.

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        • Saline9515 4 days ago

          It's anecdata, but a college friend who now works at as a manager in an IT/Data consultancy in my birth country in the EU told me bluntly that they prioritized hiring foreigners as they were 20% cheaper.

          Given that the company sponsors them and come from lower incomes countries, they are ready to accept lower wages. If they do it I don't see why everyone wouldn't be doing the same.

          It's of course hard to prove formally as those companies will comply with regs to make it look like they aren't discriminating (fake job ads, etc...). By the way in the US Indian consultancies got busted for this.

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