The Senate immigration bill will be good for the U.S. economy as a whole, but for individual workers the picture is not as good — in fact, unemployment will rise slightly and average wages will drop over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office's analysis Monday.
Senators said Wednesday they don't want to be involved in certifying whether the border is secure, saying that putting that question before a political body could keep illegal immigrants from being legalized.
The Senate immigration bill will be a major boost to the federal budget but does relatively little to clamp down on illegal immigration — cutting the future flow by only about 25 percent — according to the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the bill, released Tuesday afternoon.
The immigration amnesty under consideration in Congress would come at an enormous cost: more than $5 trillion over the lifetime of immigrants who are legalized. The bill is structured, though, to hide most of those costs from voters.
Over the next decade, Medicaid expansion under Obamacare will add millions more people to the program, doubling its current cost and bringing the number of enrollees to 84 million by 2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The federal government will dole out more than $900 billion in the top 10 tax breaks this year, according to a report Wednesday from the Congressional Budget Office that found the benefits go disproportionately to the poor and the rich.
For many investors, the more than halving of the deficit from a high of $1.55 trillion during the depths of the recession is the latest sign that the economy finally has turned the corner and is on a solidly upward path.
The guest Commentary "Cracking Big Egg" (May 21) was disingenuous if not outright misleading about the egg bill. The bill is supported by egg farmers nationwide, by voters, by consumer groups, by veterinarians, by animal welfare groups, by religious groups, by grocers and food-service companies and by many others.
The deficit is shrinking, but it's too soon to celebrate a return to sanity. America is still sinking more into debt by the minute and is still on a path to ruin.
