(Chuck Muth) – The following headline was trumpeted throughout Nevada social media this week: “Report: Undocumented immigrants in Nevada paid $500 million in taxes in 2022.”
Now, the rest of the story…
First, the article was written by a left-leaning columnist who “covers Latino political power in Nevada” for Jon Ralston’s left-leaning news blog and is based on questionable statistics by “the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.”
How do we know the columnist and news blog are left-leaning?
To start, because they used the left’s misinformation tactic of referring to “illegal” immigrants as “undocumented” immigrants despite the inescapable, undeniable fact that these folks are “undocumented” because they entered the country illegally.
“They are not undocumented, they are illegal,” wrote former Nevada gubernatorial candidate Guy Nohra on Twitter/X. “If they are not supposed to be here in the first place they are not represented and your tax analogy crumbles.”
As for the source of the columnist’s tax claims…
“MPI’s method uses information from the SIPP to assign legal status to noncitizens in the ACS. In the SIPP, noncitizens report whether they currently have lawful permanent resident (LPR) status—i.e., a green card. Those without LPR status may be recent refugees, temporary visitors, or unauthorized immigrants.”
Well, there ya go. Who can argue with that? Ugh.
And where did the supposed $500 million in taxes paid in Nevada claim come from?
At best, it’s a guess since Nevada doesn’t have an income tax and the estimate “came from property or sales tax on things such utilities, household products and gasoline.”
The article goes on claim that “unauthorized immigrants (translation: illegal immigrants) make up 4.4 percent of the U.S workforce” and that the Congressional Budget Office “projected that authorized and undocumented immigrant (translation: illegal immigrant) workers will add $7 trillion to the nation’s gross domestic product by 2034.”
Notice how the author combined “legal” and “illegal” in the CBO figure to distort the total. As the saying goes, “figures don’t lie, but liars sometimes figure.”
It’s not until well into the article – and after the damage was already done by the misleading headline – that the columnist makes a side note about the COST of illegal immigrants, which more than offsets the taxes they supposedly pay…
“A Heritage Foundation researcher pegged the net fiscal cost of illegal immigration to be between $84 billion and $94 billion a year, and the Center for Immigration Studies projected a ‘lifetime fiscal drain’ (taxes paid minus costs) of $68,000 for every undocumented individual.”
Funny how that fact didn’t make it into the headline, huh?
So what’s this really all about? I’ll tell ya…
I saw a social media post on the column complaining that this amounts to “taxation without representation.”
And what’s that mean? Well, here it comes…
Illegal immigrants should be given the right to vote!
Don’t laugh. It’s already happened in a number of liberal cities and towns, and there’s a national movement spreading. Only a matter of time before some San Francisco radical tries to bring it here to Nevada.
This propaganda piece in the Nevada Indy is a canary in the coal mine. Beware and prepare.
P.S. Also put this on your radar screen; you’re gonna start hearing a lot about it. “Smurfing” by the Democrats’ ActBlue fundraising platform.
P.P.S. Want some good news on the voter file clean-up issue? Click here
Laughter is Still the Best Medicine
A man brings his best buddy home for dinner, unannounced, at 5:30 after work. His wife begins screaming at him while his friend just sits and listens.
Wife: “My hair and makeup are not done, the house is a mess, the dishes are not done. I’m still in my pajamas and I can’t be bothered with cooking tonight! Why the hell did you bring him unannounced to our home?”
Husband: “Because he’s thinking of getting married!!!!!!”
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“I don’t understand much about politics…” – Liberal blubber-blogger Jon Ralston, 1/2/20
Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views, and founder of CampaignDoctor.com. You can sign up for his conservative, Nevada-focused e-newsletter at MuthsTruths.com. His views are his own.
The Ralston Rag Publishes Bogus Tax Report on Illegal Immigrants
