Matthew 23:23-25 Woe unto you…Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel…hypocrites!
I recently received a forwarded email which actually caused me to pause and think for about half a second. I don’t normally even read forwards unless they are jokes. For some reason I chose to read this one and have copied it below. Originally it contained 14 points regarding illegal aliens and how much they are costing U.S. citizens. I deleted the points which had nothing to do with money, but referenced the number of illegal crossings per day and how many illegal aliens are alleged pedophiles; things which had nothing to do with the total cost at the end. Please ignore the fact that it is addressed to “Americans” and called an “education.” To be precise, Mexicans are Americans. So are Canadians, Brazilians, and Alaskans. I assume he meant to say “U.S. citizens” but that is merely an assumption.
AN EDUCATION TO ALL WHO ARE AMERICANS...
You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much? Read this: Boy am I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be RIDICULOUS. I have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts.
$11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year. Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77
$2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
$2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
$12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html
$17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
$3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
$90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
$200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
The National Policy Institute, "estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period."Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
The total cost is a whopping $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR. Are we THAT stupid? If this doesn't bother you then just delete the message. If, on the other hand, if it does raise the hair on the back of your neck, I hope you forward it to every legal resident in the country including every representative in Washington, D.C. - five times a week for as long as it takes to restore some semblance of intelligence in our policies and enforcement thereof.
If you haven’t checked already, some of the links actually do go to sites which seem to verify the costs mentioned; some of them do not. When I receive forwarded emails I can usually spot the bogus ones from the start and do not need to go to www.snopes.com to double check things. But occasionally I receive emails or hear rumors which cause me to run to Snopes and find out if they are valid. Needless to say, I did not go to Snopes this time to determine the validity of this email. Simply by reading it anyone can tell it is nothing more than the moronic ramblings of a bigoted ignoramus.
IMMIGRANTS VS. ILLEGAL ALIENS
I am not at all an advocate for illegal aliens. They should all be rounded up and sent packing back to their country of origin. However, I do support a complete overhaul of our immigration policies; it is far too difficult, costly and just plain silly. I believe the restrictions should be limited to matters of health and safety. If someone wants to immigrate to the U.S., fine, but they must be free of communicable diseases and not fleeing justice for a legitimate crime they have committed (not some BS crime an oppressive government made up).
There is a poem written on a bronze plaque inside the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty stands. It is “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus:
"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall standA mighty woman with a torch, whose flameIs the imprisoned lightning, and her nameMother of Exiles. From her beacon-handGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes commandThe air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame."Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries sheWith silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
LOUSY AT MATH
Aside from all of the figures in the email not adding up to the author’s final total, there are other fatal flaws as well. Due to redundancy, the numbers are fallaciously ballooned. To take the amounts spent for Food Stamps and Medicaid, and add them to the amount spent for all welfare programs is not only idiotic, it is deceiving. Welfare is welfare. Medicaid and Food Stamps are already calculated into the welfare total. (Another thing this email fails to take into consideration is the amount of taxes paid by illegal aliens. Whether they pay the taxes under an alias or not is irrelevant as the money goes into the same pot from which the funds are drained.) I am unaware what the department is called in other states, but in Indiana the Family & Social Services Administration (FSSA) handles most forms of welfare here: food stamps, cash disbursements (TANF) and Medicaid. The government program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) receives its funding from the USDA, the same department the Food Stamps program does.
If the math the author of the email uses is correct then so is the following math:
I have $20 in my right pant’s pocket and $20 in my left for a total of $40. If I remove the $20 bill from my left and add it to the $40 I already had, that means I now have $60. I love this math! Drinks are on me everyone!
COMPARING THE REAL COSTS
Though the email is rife with bigotry and ignorance, the main message of it is that illegal aliens supposedly cost the U.S. taxpayers more money than the war in Iraq does. First and foremost; the war in Iraq has resulted in the deaths of 4,177 U.S. citizens as of October 7, 2008 (and far more innocent Iraqis lives). The value of a human life is worth far more than any amount of money. But simply sticking to the almighty dollar, here are some numbers to check out: as found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget,_2008:
The Bush administration’s budget for 2008 totals $2.9 trillion.
Welfare costs (excluding Social Security and Medicare) totals $533 billion.
Costs due to this alleged “war on terror” will be $179.5 billion (added together were the budget amounts for the Global War on Terror, and the Department of Homeland Security which would not exist were it not for the war.) The total we are spending on the United States Department of Defense is $481.4 billion. Thanks to George W. Bush the U.S. war-machine costs the U.S. taxpayers $660.9 billion.
SOME FACTS OF THE MATTER
Surprisingly, during the Clinton administration welfare reform brought about some much needed stiffening of requirements: unwed mothers were not given more money every time they popped out a baby; people were required to go to work; and illegal aliens did not qualify for Food Stamps or (all but life threatening emergency) Medicaid.
According to the U.S. Constitution (that document the politicians have apparently never read) if a baby is born in the U.S. they are a U.S. citizen. “Anchor baby” or not, they are a Constitutional U.S. citizen—deal with it.
THE REAL ISSUES
In the grand scheme of things even spending a few bucks on feeding an illegal alien isn’t that big of a deal. There are so many other things we should pissed off about:
- Bush lied to justify his invasion of Iraq in the first place, and they had nothing to do with 9/11;
- Congress and Bush have brought us closer to complete socialism with their “billionaire bailout” than FDR’s New Deal did;
- The fact that we have welfare at all is a problem;
- The media limits voters choices to McBama or Ocain;
- What about the fact that our government gives tax breaks to companies which relocate to other countries, thus taking U.S. jobs away from U.S. citizens? and
- The National Debt as of this posting is $10,192,033,243,315.02 (http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/)
Stop straining at gnats (bitching about fictitious accusations) and swallowing camels (continually allowing bloated budgets and ever dwindling liberties). Stop listening to the various news media sources (from ABC to Limbaugh) and believing every email you read, do your homework to search out the facts. Here are some places to start:
Website for the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Transparency Act)--www.usaspending.gov
Citizens Against Government Waste--www.cagw.org
The Center for Public Integrity--www.publicintegrity.org
National Taxpayers Union--www.ntu.org
The CATO Institute--www.cato.org
The Heritage Foundation--www.heritage.org
Alex Jones--www.infowars.com and www.prisonplanet.com
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