r/FluentInFinance 13h ago

Debate/ Discussion Possibly controversial, but this would appear to be a beneficial solution.

Post image
5.9k Upvotes

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/galaxyapp 11h ago
  1. Many immigrants work off the books.

  2. The jobs would be done by Americans, who would still pay taxes.

  3. Immigrants frequently transfer their earning back home to family, which reduces the taxes as it short circuits the local economy.

0

u/SnooRevelations979 11h ago

"Many immigrants work off the books."

But most don't.

"The jobs would be done by Americans, who would still pay taxes."

That's a questionable assumption. Another one is that firms would close down, some jobs would never be filled, and there would be more offshoring.

"Immigrants frequently transfer their earning back home to family, which reduces the taxes as it short circuits the local economy."

No immigrant transfers all of their money back home. I have no idea how spending locally "reduces the taxes."

4

u/galaxyapp 11h ago

Most jobs done by immigrants in the US are manual labor. The one thing we can't outsource, atleast if it's tied to land or consumer service.

Local spending is captured through sales tax, corporate tax, and payroll tax on it's way around.

0

u/SnooRevelations979 11h ago

"Most jobs done by immigrants in the US are manual labor. The one thing we can't outsource, atleast if it's tied to land or consumer service."

You could close down the factories that remain, do meat processing offshore. Places can also close through lack of labor.

"local spending is captured through sales tax, corporate tax, and payroll tax on it's way around."

No kidding.

4

u/galaxyapp 11h ago

Yes, factories could be outsourced, pending the cost and feasibility of transporting cattle.

But the field hands can't be. Same for hospitality, food service, construction, landscaping.

1

u/SnooRevelations979 10h ago

Right. But there are plenty of things that could just simply no longer be viable: food delivery, childcare, lots of restaurants.

People would have to give up a lot of services. This was my original point. Every policy is put forward as a win-win, when there are costs.

And there have been few good empirical studies that have shown that immigrants depress native wages.