Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

The tax code is a joke.

We don't need the IRS. We have the treasury.

Everyone pays a flat tax based on income levels. You make <$25K, no taxes. Then a progressive increase for those making more. No deductions. No limits.

Tax revenue needs to go up, not down. Same with SS and Medicare/Medicaid. 

You see, you say things like that, much of which I agree with, but with some important caveats that I want to disagree with...but I'm like Jules in Pulp Fiction: I'm trying real hard.

:-)

(FWIW, This was in response to CD's comment above about the relative impact of one potential President vs. another--but it could apply to a lot of different posts here.)

I think one of the reasons that you lament the state of the current political climate is that you're expecting people to be rational. As has been said:

Always remember that so much of our political climate is tribal, or it's gut reaction, or it's identity politics, or it's virtue signaling. In many cases people form their political opinion and THEN rationalize backwards from it to decide why it makes sense.

For too many of our fellow citizens, trying to logically convince them that the party opposite the one they identify with is more deserving of their support would be as easy as logically convincing @medinabuckeye1 to become a Wolverine fan or @Mdot21 to become a Buckeye fan.

This is undoubtedly true, but it's unfair to say that changing someone's views would require them to think, as opposed to rethink. There are lots of smart people here who have thought a lot about their views, and who continue to think criticially. I see posts here that tell me a lot about what news sources and media outlets they are paying attention to (which is a lot more diverse than simply saying: Fox News or MSNBC), and I can tell a lot about how they are filtering that news, but they are thinking about it. Do I wish they would think differently? Yes. But to your point, yes, a lot of our baseline views are not based on rationale as much as they are based on our tribe. Generally, we take what our tribe tells us, and find arguments to support that. And to be clear: I DO THAT, TOO. We all have simply too many things going on in our lives to be the Greek philosopher who dives into everything and tries to find some clarity after starting with a blank slate. (Not that Greek philosophers actually did that, but let me use my analogy...)

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w13229/w13229.pdf

https://siepr.stanford.edu/news/mythical-tie-between-immigration-and-crime

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/debunking-myth-migrant-crime-wave

https://www.richardhanania.com/p/conservatives-are-lying-on-immigrant

I like the latter, which starts off with "One of the things that has always driven me crazy about the left is how much they lie and twist the facts on the issue of crime."

All of these studies or articles or aggregates (and you can find ten million more if you care to look) all arrive at the same conclusion, which is that there is no indication immigrants commit any more crime than native populations and in fact commit much less. But of course, you don't care about the data or the studies. Those go against what you believe, and that must mean they are all made up and phony and financed by the Koch Brothers.

So what is the point of this? You readily admit you aren't interested in any data that goes against what you believe, so it's just a game of spouting some crap into the wind and then claiming you have debunked all the phony studies that don't reflect what you believe.

Bad data causes bad results.  

Every single one of these goes back to FBI Crime stats and, as you surely must know, those come from local law enforcement.  Local law enforcement is legally prohibited from inquiring into immigration status in all of the large, pro-regime, democrat-run sanctuary cities so literally all immigrant crime in such cities is NOT reported as immigrant crime.  Note footnote #1 on your first link states " Research on the criminal justice outcomes of immigrants is limited (Mears 2002).  However, research on other outcomes shows that immigrants are less likely to use welfare than similar natives ".  Research is limited because there isn't data because the Sanctuary Cities are hiding it.  Note that all of your links refer back to the same bad study that I already explained treats all crime not "known to be committed by an immigrant" as having been committed by a native.  This is a sleight of hand.  In theory it would be fine IF all crimes committed by immigrants were reported as such but that is LEGALLY prohibited.  Thus, the study treats all crimes not "known to be committed by an immigrant" as having been committed by a native even though that clearly isn't true.  

In spite of that, your link #4 "Illegal immigrants are about equal to natives or slightly higher, but since legal immigrants compose the majority of all arrivals, the net impact of immigration on crime is to lower it."

My main issue, from the beginning has been with illegal immigrants and even YOUR OWN Article admits that they commit crimes at equal or "slightly higher" rates than natives.  

The issue isn't whether illegal immigrants commit crimes at higher or lower rates than natives, we shouldn't be admitting ANY criminals.  To the extent that we are, our immigration system is failing.  However, I don't even need that because YOUR OWN link admits that illegal immigrants commit crimes about equal to natives or slightly higher".  

Nobody is complaining about Tax Paying Legal Immigrant Doctors and Engineers.  

Additionally, it is funny how sometimes these propaganda pieces are so focused on the big lie that they are pushing (Immigrant crime is low in this case) that they inadvertently admit inconvenient truths about other issues.  From your first link, see page 2:

• "immigrants have low average levels of education and very low average wages"
• "Many studies have documented immigrants’ poor labor market outcomes (see, for example, Borjas 2004). These outcomes are due in part to the low skills that many immigrants bring with them, and in part to immigrants’ loss of other elements of human capital (such as language and social networks) that enable individuals to make full use of their skills."
• " For similar reasons, there are general concerns that immigration adds to the “underclass” in the United States by increasing dependence on cash assistance and subsidized medical care, decreasing homeownership, and creating pockets of entrenched poverty with adverse social outcomes."

The United States has PLENTY of poor people and PLENTY of unskilled and low-skilled laborers.  Importing more makes us poorer for rather obvious reasons.  

You keep going back to "all immigrants".  I think you are wrong there and that we'd be better off with none but I don't need that and it isn't what I'm advocating.  I'm advocating a HIGHLY selective immigration policy.  Such a policy would exclude all of the following:

• Criminals
• Welfare recipients
• Persons with earnings of less than 150% of the US Median.  

All of the above are CLEARLY and OBVIOUSLY financial losers for the US.  

I would also have age-based restrictions simply because SS and Medicare are already driving us broke but to the extent that they work at all, they only work if recipients pay into them for MANY years first.  Current SS rules allow retirement after 40 quarters (10 years) and that OBVIOUSLY isn't enough.  Financially, we HAVE to get at least 25-30 years out of a worker to make giving them SS and Medicare sensible at all so with retirement age at around 65-70, we shouldn't be admitting anyone over about 35-45.  Within that 35-45 group, financially, it depends on earnings.  A 45 year old brain surgeon who is going to come here and make $1M/yr is obviously a net plus but a 35 yr old closer to 150% of the US Median is a net drain.  Anybody at less than 150% of the US Median is a net drain.  

In other news, it's fleet week here, which means I have F-35s flying past my office window, which is pretty cool.

Anybody at less than 150% of the US Median is a net drain.  

Without going over the same things over and over, I can say with certainty this is where we disagree. I strongly believe that the hope of having some sort of centralized plan for the economy is hopeless. The best you can do is have good capable people responding to whatever needs you have at the time. Immigrants tend to be self selecting to be capable - that's what makes them immigrants, which is why I generally support more of them. 

Not many immigrants would be able to match US median incomes for obvious reasons.  "We" are insanely wealthy here without knowing it as compared with most of the world.  Folks elsewhere earning that much would be doing so well, in most countries, they'd have little reason to leave (other than religious persecution, war, etc.).

They also might be corrupt to be that wealthy.

I had peers working for the same company in Europe and their overall standard of living was quite a bit short of mine.  A good part of that was taxes and cost of living overall of course.