DaveInVA wrote:  Interesting.

1) So illegal workers actually DO pay taxes on their income. Plus sales tax on their purchases, et al. Kinda shoots a hole in THAT talking point.

2) The law is vague and apparently unenforced. Whose fault is that? Not really the ditch-digger's problem, he's trying to work the system just like everybody else.

3) The problem should be fixed, absolutely.

4) $4.2B into the estimated 12 million illegal workers comes out to about $350/person. I've seen the jobs those folks do, I find it pretty difficult to begrudge them that.

We have two big problems contributing here:
1) Our tax system is hopelessly complex.

2) Our immigration policy, even our very borders, are a patchwork, and loosely enforced if at all.

Illegal Workers Used Tax Credit to Pocket $4.2 Billion, Audit Shows

 kurtster wrote: 
Except those small ones they serve probably used to bark more than oink..

 kurtster wrote: 
Check that! My Mama had 'em beat by worlds...

rabbithole

 oldviolin wrote: 
That's what you get for getting a pork chop at an Italian restuarant.  Chinese restuarants have always been the best place for a good pork chop.

 oldslabsides wrote: 

I got a bad pork chop at Macaroni Grill once.  I puked my shoe heels up for three days straight.  I will NEVER eat there again.

oh, wait! my bad...

What I have to say on the immigration issue...

If the world is gonna play the nation state game, then borders have to mean something. 

 kurtster wrote: 
Actually, if you look back, you will see that  I was responding to this statement of yours:

We didn't have an American president talking about moats and alligators for border protection before Obama.

I was pointing out that we were talking about building a fence on the border well before Obama took office.  So your accusations of my trying to shift the subject fails. The bouncing ball is of your making.  

And the Supreme Court is looking at a pre-emption issue. You simply refuse to acknowledge that part of the issue because it does not fit in with your political agenda.

There is a drug war going on iin Mexico, and it has spilled over the borders into Texas and Arizona. The amount of deaths in Mexico has escalated exponentially in the last several years. There has been much written about that.  The Obama administration — and whomever succeeds him — will have to deal with this problem vis-a-vis our borders.  The drug war being waged by the U.S. for decades now is a failed policy.  Laying the blame all at Obama's feet defies logic and common sense.    

 oldslabsides wrote: 

Maybe because yer a mitt-a-gator ?

When we talk about borders, its about Obama and all-i-gators.

 steeler wrote: 

#1  You mockingly tried to shift the subject from the present to the past by mentioning that we had these problems prior to Obama, which we did.  What does the unbuilt fence have to do with this ?  Well if it was built and finished as intended, it would change the subject a little.  But it has not been built to the extent of the 2006 HR.  Congress controls the purse strings and who ran Congress from 2006 to 2010 ?

#2  Its a 10th Amendment issue because the Federal government ala Obama has abrogated its responsibities to defend the country against enemies, both foreign and domestic.

#3  Yes, it has expanded exponentially under Obama.  We have bullets flying actoss the border and hitting buildings in the State of Texas.  That never happened before.  Well maybe during the days of Pancho Villa, but not since.  We have the case of Fast and Furious.  We have the case of Arizona being the kidnapping capital of the world, all new under Obama.

 kurtster wrote: 

Paragraph 1:  I believe  those advocating building a fence on the border were concerned with illegal immigration and terrorism.  I did not change the subject. Those advocating that the fence be built were doing so before Obama took office.  

Paragraph 2:  It is an issue before the Supreme Court.  I would not label it a constitutional crisis. It is a federal pre-emption issue that is rather nuanced, but it is not manufactured by Obama as you seem to believe and have implied.  

Paragraphs 3 and 4: lllegal immigration from Mexico, or through Mexico, has been a problem for a long time. It is fair to focus on what we are doing about it now. But, per usual, your earlier posts assailed Obama and implied that the problem has grown exponentially during Obama's term.     

 steeler wrote: 

I thought we were talking about legal versus illegal immigration and its present situation.  Everyone keeps changing the subject by trying to talk about it in the past tense and trying to ingnore that there is an illegal immigration problem by painting those against illegal immigration as being against any kind of immigration.  I'm trying to keep it on what is happening now.

Sure we can talk about how we got here, but that doesn't matter anymore, does it ?  We now have a Constitutional crisis manufactured because of our current POTUS' position on illegal immigration and what sovreignty is.

Why he is so concerned about about it that he is promising to get it fixed in the first year of his second term, just like he promised to do in the first year of his first term.  Gimme a flippin break.

Any conversation on the subject has to include and be about who is currently in charge and responsible for the current situation, doesn't it ?  Or would you simply like to talk about straw ?

 steeler wrote: 
Heard it on NPR yesterday too. But that's all it's doing, waning, not down dramatically, waning. Less jobs to cross the border for = waning, not "the issue is fixed"...come an economic recovery, which we all know is just around the corner the problem will resurface.

 kurtster wrote: 
Legalize it.I agree Obama is not handling our relationship with Mexico and the drug war any better than the rest of em.

 sirdroseph wrote: 

OK, screw the immigration issue then.  We have a full tilt flippin war on the border that wasn't happenning before 2009.

 kurtster wrote: 

What are you talking about?

Talk about building a fence along the border between Mexico and the U.S. surfaced well before Obama took office.

See, for example:

House Resolution 6061 (H.R. 6061), "Secure Fence Act of 2006", was introduced on September 13, 2006. It passed through the U.S. House of Representatives on September 14, 2006 with a vote of 283–138.

 sirdroseph wrote: 

No terrorism, either.  And no al-Queda, war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, strife in Pakistan. All that amped up when Obama took office. Bin Laden did not exist as a threat until he was taken out under Obama's watch.  Wait . . . that last one isn't coming out the way it should.    

 kurtster wrote: 
Yep, no one has ever talked about illegal immigration before January 2009. That was the first time I ever heard of anyone entering this country illegally.

 steeler wrote: 
What kind of immigration is waning from Mexico ?  Legal or illegal ?

Before Obama, there wasn't much shooting and open war on the border.  States were not calling for federal troops at the borders before Obama, to my knowledge.  US law enforcement officers were not getting killed with weapons sold by the US governent to Mexican war lords before Obama.

We didn't have an American president talking about moats and alligators for border protection before Obama.

 steeler wrote: 
There was no illegal immigration before Obama; nor was there crime or dwarf tossing.