Per the Daily Signal, Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has run the numbers of what executive amnesty qualifiers could be eligible for in terms of public welfare benefits including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This doesn't even include ObamaCare subsidies, since they're not technically eligible for those . . . yet.
But just looking at what they could get per current policy, I hope you like paying taxes because you'll need to if you we're going to keep paying for this:
In the study, Rector focused specifically on a program Obama announced in November that would grant temporary deportation deferrals and work permits to illegal immigrant parents who have at least one U.S.-born child and have lived in this country for the last five years.
The program, known as DAPA, allows work authorization and protected deportation status for three years, but Rector assumes the program will last in perpetuity unless a future president decides to undo it.
Based on that assumption, if 3.97 million illegal immigrant parents earn legal protection, as Rector estimates, they will earn about $1.3 trillion in Social Security and Medicare payments over their lifetime, he says.
They also immediately are eligible for two cash welfare programs: the earned income tax credit and the additional child tax credit, and can retroactively apply for those benefits for the last three years. Together, Rector reports, the two tax credits can provide up to $7,460 in cash benefits each year for a lower-income family with two children.
Rector calculates the $7.8 billion in total tax credit cash payments to DAPA recipients per year is greater than what newly “on the books” working immigrant parents would pay in taxes.
Assuming about half of the DAPA eligible population already formally works and pays taxes, the second half of that group who becomes “on the books” will add $7.2 billion per year in Social Security and federal income tax revenues.
In addition, DAPA beneficiaries immediately receive Social Security numbers upon being accepted into the program.
Let's not forget the Democrats' big-picture strategy when it comes to the doling out of public benefits. Remember when Mitt Romney bemoaned the 47 percent? These are the people who will always vote Democrat because they are reliant in one way or another on public benefits and they know which party will keep the cash flowing. Democrats know this too, and their goal is to get that number above 50 percent and keep it there in perpetuity, because at that point they've got a permanent electoral majority that feels it can't risk seeing their benefactors out of power.
Massive amnesty for illegal aliens, even if Obama has to do it via an illegal executive order, is worth the risk for them because it quickly expands that constituency. And this is the time to do it because, as Obama clearly realizes, Republicans can't figure out a way to curtail his rogue executive actions even with majorities in both houses of Congress.
Not all these illegal aliens will ultimately become eligible to vote, but many of them will and their U.S.-born children almost certainly will. I am not one of those who bemoans "anchor babies" and wants them deported. I have no problem with the idea that if you are born here, you are a citizen. The circumstances of your birth are not your fault. But I do have a problem with politicians making you dependent on them expressly for the purpose of making you feel compelled to vote for them forever.
That is what this is all about. The problem with illegal immigration is not that fer'ners will take our jobs. It's that they'll become as dependent on government beneficience as far too many our our own citizens already are. And you should find it appalling that one of our two major political parties not only has no problem with this, but is actively trying to make it happen.
No wonder these guys want in so badly:
