Today’s mathematics equation for your consideration:

Unskilled Immigrants + Large Welfare State = Higher Taxes

Courtesy of Free Republic Online, this is a pretty fine article – one of the best I’ve ever read – on the issue of illegal immigration and its impact on our free-market economy. In it, James Miller of TCS Daily writes that, while there is both good and bad to be found in the proposed “comprehensive” immigration reform legislation currently being tweaked by Senate negotiators on both sides of the aisle, the bottom line is that illegal immigration by unskilled workers hinders technological innovation and promotes higher taxes on all.

[The above equation] shows why free market enthusiasts should oppose the current immigration bill. Yes, historically immigration has helped the U.S. economy. But our large welfare state combined with the importance of education to wealth creation provides a compelling reason to oppose importing unskilled immigrants and citizens. The benefit an immigrant provides to an economy comes from the value of his work. The lower an immigrant’s skill, the less value the economy derives from his presence.

Some immigration advocates, though, claim that the U.S. economy “needs” unskilled immigrants to work at critical — if low paid — jobs. This, however, is an economically silly argument. If a job offers low wages either it is relatively unimportant for the economy or many people are willing to do it.

A hundred years ago human muscles played a relatively large role in powering our economy. At that time a strong, hardworking, but uneducated immigrant could make great contributions to our economy. Today, however, when our economy mostly runs on educated brains, we receive far less benefit from importing uneducated workers.

Much of the cost of new immigrants comes from the government services they consume. In 1900 the U.S. provided relatively few government benefits to anyone, so poorly paid immigrants couldn’t become too much of a burden on the economy. Today, however, government spending is about five times larger (as a percentage of the economy) than it was in 1900. And legal immigrants today have the right to consume considerable government services. Indeed, according to the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector, in 1994 the average low-skilled immigrant household received $30,160 in direct governmental benefits. But this same average family paid only $10,573 in taxes. As a result, low skilled immigrants are net tax eaters. (But read this for a contrary view.) The difference between the taxes paid by unskilled immigrants and the government benefits these immigrants receive is mostly made up by taxes imposed on U.S. citizens. Such additional taxes slow our economy.

There’s no doubt the current debate over immigration reform is complex and multi-faceted. And, while advocates of immigration love to portray this debate in the end as a “human” issue (i.e., immigrants children are our future!), there’s also a significant debate that needs to take place on the ecomonic effect of massive illegal immigration. I still believe, in the end, it all comes down to our needing to do a better job of securing our borders and requiring those who want to become U.S. citizens to take a place in line along with those who have already come here legally, while at the same time instituting a more effective guest-worker program for those who don’t.

There’s a way out of this quagmire if only people would emphasize the need for our nation to do a better job of enforcing the laws already on the books. No need to figure out how to build a new kind of bicycle from scratch here.