Thursday, January 31, 2013

David Brooks, "The Easy Problem," Versus Paul Krugman, "Looking for Mister Goodpain": I Prefer Immigration

David Brooks and Paul Krugman are again at odds on the op-ed page of The New York Times.

In his latest Times op-ed entitled "The Easy Problem" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/opinion/brooks-the-easy-problem.html), Brooks persuasively makes the case for immigration:

"Increased immigration would boost the U.S. economy. Immigrants are 30 percent more likely to start new businesses than native-born Americans, according to a research summary by Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney of The Hamilton Project. They are more likely to earn patents. A quarter of new high-tech companies with more than $1 million in sales were also founded by the foreign-born.

. . . .

Immigrants, both legal and illegal, do not drain the federal budget. It’s true that states and localities have to spend money to educate them when they are children, but, over the course of their lives, they pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits. Furthermore, according to the Congressional Budget Office, giving the current illegals a path to citizenship would increase the taxes they pay by $48 billion and increase the cost of public services they use by $23 billion, thereby producing a surplus of $25 billion."

Could relaxed immigration laws reinvigorate the American economy, or is it already terminally ill? I would certainly give it the chance that it deserves.

Krugman, on the other hand, in his latest Times op-ed entitled "Looking for Mister Goodpain" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/opinion/krugman-looking-for-mister-goodpain.html), continues to demand (yawn) that the US spend its way out of the recession:

"So what do we learn from the rather pathetic search for austerity success stories? We learn that the doctrine that has dominated elite economic discourse for the past three years is wrong on all fronts."

Excuse me, but where do we find any economic success stories during this cold winter, premised upon either austerity or spending? Me? I believe in the words of Chance the Gardener in "Being There":

"In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again."

Yes, after the winter comes the spring, provided we don't spread too much fertilizer, i.e. spend, spend and spend, and kill all the roots.

Thank you, Paul, but I think I'll side with David on this one.

1 comment:

  1. These pundits that favor amnesty must not believe that a country needs to control its immigration. The millions of Americans who are currently out of work would probably like to strangle the author for non-chalantly dismissing their joblessnes as unimportant compared to embracing people who broke the law by entering this country illegally and then taking jobs for much less pay which causes them to depend on social services to get by and causes the American who should have gotten the job to also require social services. We have immigration laws and as long as people immigrate legally under a quota, I do not have a problem with it. I do have a problem with my tax money being used to promote lawlessness and uncontrolled exodus to this country. Would you allow an indeterminate number of illegals to live in your home? Of course not. There is a limit. Amnesty will only encourage mass illegal immigration which will lower our standard of living even more. Some of these pundits need to be jobless for several years and need to lose their dignity and maybe they will have a different attitude than they have now. Their arrogance is hard to fathom.

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