To all Candidates, and Elected Officials: RevisedTo all Candidates, and Elected Officials: Revised, 5/19/, 2008 By winn1955 - Mon, 05/19/2008 - 1:14pm I wrote this blog yesterday, my questions were as follows. I do have a Question for all candidates running for the elected offices in Clay County, and the ones who now hold seats in county government. What is your opinion on illegal immigration in our county? What are you prepared to do about it? And how would you fix the problems it creates in our county, and its budget? Only two people responded to my blog, normally I could care less about a response to the blogs that I Write. The questions that I ask are too important to be ignored, and demands an answer from our local government, and candidates running for office. My mistake in my first blog was I didn’t show how relevant my questions are. The only one that ask me the question about how it effects the budget was from bloger dmccall His blog is as follows, “If they are illegal then the county needs to enforce the laws Call INS, the sheriffs office, What do you mean by the budget problems ,can you be specific?”My reply too Dmccall was very specific, and to the point, and it also shows just how relevant my questions are for our county officials to answer, along with the candidates. If anyone disagrees with me, please tell me where I am wrong. The following is the answer to Dmccall, dmccall, I have been doing much research on the cost of illegal Immigration, I hope this is a satisfactory answer to your question. I have been doing much research on the cost of illegal immigration in our state. And as you will see the stats are quite staggering, especially since the budget cuts in all areas of our county government. I am going to quote a comment made by a candidate running for the office of the Sheriff. As he answered the question from Magnumforce on his blog that he wrote saying; HELLO, and introducing himself as a candidate for that office. The quote is from Braveheart. “The Sheriff's Office is looking at a 9 million dollar loss in operational funding. The SO has to start looking and thinking "out of the box".
It is not my intention to criticize this candidate, or any other, only to make my point on the relevance of my question to all elected officials and candidates running for office. If the sheriff’s office is expecting a 9 million dollar short fall wouldn’t it be prudent to investigate the cost of illegal immigrants placed in their care, and the effect on their budget?
If 1.7 Billion a year is spent in the state of Florida on the cost of Schools, Medical care, and our law enforcement alone; my question demands an answer of how it affects the county budget from the sheriff, the candidates for his office, the School superintendent, and candidates for that office. To be quite frank, I don’t know who you would ask about the medical cost associated with those statistics.
I will try and be as specific as possible, with my Analysis of the latest Census data. The data indicates Florida’s illegal immigrant population is costing the state’s taxpayers more than $1.7 billion dollars per year for education, medical care and incarceration. Even if the estimated taxes collected from illegal immigrant workers are subtracted, net outlays still amount to nearly one billion dollars per year. The annual fiscal burden amounts to about $300 per Florida household headed by a native-born resident. These statistics do not take into consideration any of the other social services that are offered, private, or public.
This analysis looks specifically at the costs to the state for education, health care and incarceration resulting from illegal immigration. These three are the largest cost areas, and they are the same three areas analyzed in a 1994 study conducted by the Urban Institute, which provides a useful baseline for comparison a decade later. Other studies have been conducted in the interim, showing trends that support the conclusions of this report. There are other significant costs associated with illegal immigration; federal, state, and local officials should take these into account as well. Even without accounting for all of the numerous areas in which costs associated with illegal immigration are being incurred by Florida taxpayers, the program areas analyzed in this study indicate that the burden is substantial and that the costs are rapidly increasing. The nearly two billion dollars in costs incurred by Florida taxpayers annually result from outlays in the following areas: Education: Based on estimates of the illegal immigrant population in Florida and documented costs of K-12 schooling, Floridians spend more than $1.5 billion annually on education for illegal immigrant children and for their U.S.-born siblings. About 8.7 percent of the K-12 public school students in Florida are children of illegal aliens. Health Care: Taxpayer-funded, unreimbursed medical outlays for health care provided to the state’s illegal alien population amount to about $165 million a year. Incarceration: The uncompensated cost of incarcerating illegal aliens in Florida’s state and county prisons amounts to about $60 million a year (not including local jail detention costs or related law enforcement and judicial expenditures or the monetary costs of the crimes that led to their incarceration). State and local taxes paid by the unauthorized immigrant population go toward offsetting these costs, but they do not come near to matching the expenses. The total of such payments can generously be estimated at about $910 million per year. The fiscal costs of illegal immigration do not end with these three major cost areas. The total costs of illegal immigration to the state’s taxpayers would be considerably higher if other cost areas such as special English instruction, welfare programs used by the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal alien workers were also calculated. Dmccall I hope I have answered your question specifically enough to your satisfaction. And I would also hope that these statistics open a lively debate on the topic. If it doesn’t and this blog gets shoved to the back pages, I can assure you I will keep bringing it forward until the county government, and the candidates give an answer to my questions. I for one am tired of a government that chooses to turn their heads on laws while we suffer the consequences of their actions. I am tired of loosing work to law breaking illegals that we can not possibly compete with. I am tired of contractors demanding we carry insurance, and workman’s comp, while they hire the law breakers under the table, and turn our bids down because they can get the work done for pennies on the dollar, and take advantage of the law breakers. It’s just not right when hard working law abiding citizens loose work, from corporate greed. I am totally discussed with our government, national, and local. So in summation of this blog I have to ask all who read it, in your opinion, do the statistics as presented show the relevance of the questions I have ask to be answered by our candidates, and elected officials? And if not why? It takes an unsatisfied person to make things satisfactory: winn1955
Submitted by GhostWriter on Wed, 05/21/2008 - 11:52am.
Winn Give it up you are not going to get anyone to respond to your blog, why you ask? That is a good question, and the answer is; they have no clue as to how much is taken from the county budget from the population of illegal immigrants that reside in Clay County, and it would be my guess they have no idea how to find out.
Actually if you think about it, it is insanity in its purest form. You have the school board crying to the state that they can not comply with school concurrency in the allotted time allowed. The State is severely cutting its budget, counties are scrambling to find money, or find places to cut department budgets, You have the department heads squealing uncle, I can’t cut my budget anymore, a candidate running for Sheriff is telling us there will be a 9 million dollar short fall in that departments budget, and he wants to add more school resource officers. And none of these educated people have considered the cost, or extra demand it places on the county citizen. TRULY AMAZING!
As Freespeech said the questions you ask are appropriate ones to ask your local government about, but like I said it isn’t going to happen. No one wants to touch this subject, not even the blogers on this site. Why, as I stated your officials have no clue, and I don’t have a clue why the blogers on this site won’t debate the issue, maybe they have never considered the cost factor and have no knowledge to offer, NOT! You know full well one of them besides Freespeech could offer some type of opinion. I’m clueless as to why no one has, Just had to put my two cents in.
For I am the Ghostwriter
Submitted by lilyslore on Wed, 05/21/2008 - 2:40pm.
Winn, I understand the frustration at not getting more of a discussion going. I tried hard as I could to get the whole blog community involved over the crooked Fair Tax scam but either it was too boring for most people or they have already made up their minds so debate is just not justified. The most response I got was from the Sewer Harpies personally attacking me and not the message. But when one is reading challenged one has no other recourse I suppose. I agree with most peope that illegal immigration is injurious to our country in many ways. I believe most people are against it except maybe some attorneys making big bucks to file frivolous lawsuits to keep them here but most people descended from legal immigrants are extremely irritated about the constant law breaking and the refusal of the government to do anything serious about it. Seems our elected officials would like to fast track them to citizenship in hopes of getting their votes and to hell with anyone who follows the rules. By the way, asking a professional politician for his opinion is a useless exercise as one can never really be sure if they are telling the truth. So what's the point? Lily's Lore "I don't ever want to be rescued And I don't ever want to be saved I got a feelin' that I'm gonna be alive forever Dancin' on the edge of a grave..." Jim Steinman Submitted by winn1955 on Wed, 05/21/2008 - 8:07pm.
Ghostwriter, absolutely not! I will not give up on this endeavor, not when my grandson had to stop bringing home work home in the middle of April because the teacher had used her allotted time on the copy machine for the year. Is anyone aware that when a teacher has to use a copy machine they have to use an ID number that holds them to a certain amount of copies? If that comment doesn’t wake this community up I have sorely underestimated this communities concern about their school children. When my research indicates that the state of Florida Spends 1.7 Billion on the scourge of illegal immigrants that have infiltrated our state, and out of that number 1.5 Billion is taken from our schools state budget to educate the law breakers, while our county school system can’t afford to make a fricken copy for home work, and our community don’t seem interested enough to find out what comes out of the county budget of illegal immigrant, am I riled up, your dam right I am. When our medical system is over taxed, and our jails are full, and our government turns their heads to enforcing laws that are already on the books, am I riled up; your dam right I am. When our local community cries and whines about how inefficient our local governments is, and then turn their heads of apparent non concern for an issue that could save thousands on our budget, am I riled up, your dam right I am. When my family losses work to illegal immigrants because they can work under the table, while we have to spend hundreds of dollars every month to play by the rules because we have to carry workmans comp, and insurance, and they don’t, contractors can hire the law breakers this way, if they get hurt who the hell will they complain to, they are here illegally, am I riled up, your dam right I am. Do I want an answer from our officials, your dam right I do. Would I like the community to get behind me on this issue, your dam right I would. Lilly you are correct that people are fed up with the scourge that has infiltrated our country, and our State. You can’t depend on the federal government, but as you have most likely read about the Victory on the Ag, bill that Finstein was trying to push through on the Iraq funding bill. Our representatives heard the people, and striped it from the bill. And it is not just the attorneys interested in the law breakers its corporate America sucking up the cheap labor with no responsibility; to them they are a disposable commodity that can be thrown away, if the occasion arises. Lilly, all who read these blogs and the citizens of our community have a responsibility to see that our officials investigate ALL avenues of unnecessary expenditures that hinder the infrastructure of our community. Especially our children’s education!
While the primary responsibility for combating illegal immigration rests with the federal government, there are many measures that state and local governments can take to combat the problem. Floridians, and local governments should not be expected to assume this already large and growing burden from illegal immigration simply because local businesses, or other special interests benefit from being able to employ lower cost workers. The state could adopt measures to systematically collect information on illegal alien use of taxpayer-funded services and on where they are employed. Policies could then be pursued to hold employers financially accountable. The state could also broaden its cooperative agreement with the federal government for training local law enforcement personnel in immigration law to be able to increase the numbers of illegal immigrants apprehended for breaking the law that are turned over to the immigration authorities for removal from the country. Florida has also voluntarily adopted policies that add to the cost burdens of illegal immigration. The state and some local jurisdictions have adopted policies that recognize an identity card issued by the Mexican government to Mexicans residing illegally in the United States as valid identity documents for state and local governmental purposes. This clearly is an accommodation to illegal alien residents. Handing out this type of accommodations to illegals certainly send the message of acceptance, and must stop. It takes an unsatisfied person to make things satisfactory:winn1955
Submitted by TruthHurts on Wed, 05/21/2008 - 11:46pm.
I am going to get me some coffee. More people should go and get themselves a great big mug of coffee. Try it black, the rich flavor really comes through. It will make you smile, and make you a much better person. TRUTHHURTS Please go to http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer Sign the petition for the Fair Tax Bill. Tell Congress to pass this Bill. People are talking about ...Here are the recent blog postings with the most comments. |
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Winn Very informative blog...
Winn Very informative blog and I concur completely that the questions you ask of your local politicians are more than appropriate Questions. On the federal level I was aware that the estimated cost is about 30 billion annually. The figure in Florida of almost 2 Billion dollars is a very astounding amount. But what really caught my eye was that out of the figure of 1.7 Billion, the school system in Florida absorbs 1.5 Billion of your tax dollars to support the education of Illegal aliens that come to this country.
On the federal level one of the major cost of our tax dollars from illegal immigrants, other than medical, is caused by being under educated, along with the cost of anchor babies being born in this country that also use are educational dollars, and services.
The 1.5 Billion that is consumed by the illegals in Florida would be money that could be going to educate the children of the American citizens in your great State. Not to mention if you look at the federal stats it would appear that the money spent trying to educate the Illegal immigrants is a total waste of tax money, do to their under educated status.
Under the circumstances with all the state budget short falls in your state your local government owes an explanation on the cause, and effect of illegal immigration in your community. On just education alone your county could stand to save thousands of the school budgets money, if not more. If it were I who lived in your county, I most certainly would hold all of your officials accountable for answers on your topic. Good luck with you objectives.
Ps I have read much of the political Jib Jab on this blog site, if this doesn’t fire someone up on this issue It would sure surprise me. If you don’t here from a politician on the matter you can figure that they are hiding under their desk.
What Say you; Blogers! Repost