President Trump has often said that Mexico would pay for the Wall where the purpose is to stop (or at least, slow down) illegal immigration on our Southern border. He’s consistently held to this even as everyone else has either bashed the idea (the Open Borders addicts, “the establishment”, or the illegal alien apologists) or rolled their eyes (“you expect to get that passed, here, in DC??”). I’ve always thought that the Wall should be built and the Law enforced. While everyone else was saying that it would be impossible, I knew it was a rather simple thing. Not complicated, not devious – rather straight forward, actually. Just tax the remittances being sent back to Mexico. Simple, eh? And if you did it with a sufficiently high tax, you could accomplish two things: build the wall fast and act as a huge and perverse incentive to come here simply to work (as opposed to becoming an American).
Sure, too high and the remittances will go down (like when Democrats raise money grubbing taxes and regulations on companies and we watch jobs go away) but take that as a good thing because it means that illegal immigration is also down (and yes, I know that legal immigrants do the same thing – but that can be taken care of).
But it would take one HUGE thing that often time is lacking in DC – the political will to do so. My, my, two CongressCritters have manned up to do exactly that – a bill to tax remittances heading to Mexico (reformatted, emphasis mine):
Border wall funding solved: GOP pushes for 2% fee on money immigrants send home
A group of House Republicans on Thursday introduced the first major bill to fund President Trump’s border wall, saying the government could collect billions of dollars by imposing a 2 percent fee on all the money Mexicans and other immigrants send back home. Estimates vary, but remittances from those in the U.S. to their relatives back home could top $130 billion a year. A 2 percent tax could net more than $2 billion a year if it applied to all money regardless of who’s sending it.
“This bill is simple — anyone who sends their money to countries that benefit from our porous borders and illegal immigration should be responsible for providing some of the funds needed to complete the wall,” Rep. Mike Rogers, Alabama Republican, said in a statement. “This bill keeps money in the American economy, and most importantly, it creates a funding stream to build the wall.”
Mr. Rogers and Rep. Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania are leading the effort.
Hmmm, good idea but bad implementation – these guys are too cheap. Really, only 2%? It should be much, much higher. After all, if US companies want to go through an inversion to move itself offshore, the capture tax is already high (here, here) and a number of Democrats would love to see that much higher than it is now (Trump wants a tax at 35% for returning goods). If you are an American citizen, you get a similar shafting (here, here) if you decide to renounce your citizenship (again, mostly because of high American taxes) and move abroad.
So, if we are so hard on our own companies and people by making it hard to “move money” out of the country, why not illegal aliens that shouldn’t be here? At 2%, it’s a bargain! Now, for the former, I believe this is the equivalent of an “economic Berlin Wall” – to keep people from leaving just as the East German wall kept it’s people inside.
I don’t have the same problem taxing illegals in sending their ill-gotten gains out of the country – think of it as a “rolling fine”. But again, 2%? No way! Put it at 25% – the midrange of our Progressive income tax system. Just think of it – like many of we Americans who have to fork over 1 out of every $4 to the government, they could join our misery. And just like our government seems to do to us when I read the 1040 tax tables, ratchet it up on a yearly basis.
Hey, if it is “good” for us, why not people who shouldn’t be here?
BUILD. THAT. WALL!
(H/T: Washington Times)
