The other day, LA County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich announced that a new report shows illegal aliens and their families in Los Angeles County collected over $35 million in welfare and food stamp allocations in July.

 

In the report, illegals are said to have collected nearly $20 million in welfare assistance for July 2007 and an additional $15 million in monthly food stamp allocations for an estimated annual cost of $440 million.

 

"Illegal immigration continues to have a devastating impact on Los Angeles County taxpayers," said Antonovich.  "In addition to $220 million for public safety and $400 million for healthcare, the $440 million in welfare allocations bring the total cost to County taxpayers that exceeds $1 billion a year -- this does not include the skyrocketing cost of education."  

 

So a simple guess of the cost to American taxpayers for the illegal alien onslaught in Los Angeles County alone is easily in excess of $2,000,000,000 a year if you assume there are as few as 100,000 illegal aliens in the school system (there are probably many times more than that).

 

Multiply that by what the other counties, cities and states around our country are spending and you come up with a huge amount probably in excess of the budget deficits of most of those entities.

 

Of course, the argument is that if we don't have the illegals, who will do the work.  Lately we've been hearing about all the problems farmers are going to have getting their crops picked if they don't get the illegal's to do it, because no one else will. 

 

What they fail to mention is that no one else will do it for the artificially low wages they are able to pay to get the work done because the President has allowed so many illegal aliens to get into the country.

 

As an example, we are hearing constantly now that food prices will soar if farmers have to pay more for people to harvest their crops.  The facts are that this is a bold faced lie.

 

From a UC Davis study found at  http://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=529_0_5_0  I was able to find the following information.

 

How much would farm worker wages increase if some of these immigrant workers were not available? In 1966, one year after the end of the bracero program, the fledgling United Farm Workers union won a 40 percent wage increase for table grape harvesters. Average hourly farm-worker earnings were about $7.56 for US field and livestock workers in 2000, according to a USDA survey of farm employers, and another 40 percent increase would raise them to $10.58.

 

If a 40 percent farm-worker wage increase were fully passed on to consumers, and if there were no farm productivity improvements in response to higher farm wages, the 5-6 cent farm labor cost of a pound of apples or a head of lettuce would rise to 7-8 cents, and the retail price would rise from $1 to $1.02-$1.03.

 

A large increase in farm wages translates into a small retail cost increase because: (1) farm labor is a third of farmers' costs; and (2) farmers receive only a fraction of the retail price of food. For a typical 2.5-person consumer unit, a 40 percent increase in farm worker wages that led to a three percent increase in retail fresh fruit and vegetable costs would increase the spending of a typical consumer unit by $9 a year, raising expenditures from $301 to $310.

 

My question to all Americans is, therefore, fairly simple.  Wouldn't you rather have people abiding by our laws and working legally even if it cost you an additional $9.00 a year (or $20.00 a year for your fruits and vegetables if all farm workers got a 100% raise in wages).  At a 100% increase in wages, don't you think it would be a lot easier to find workers for the fields?

 

Wouldn't the small increase in our food bills be more than offset by the billions of dollars we would save in our taxes every year that we are currently spending to support the illegal alien community?  I say, "YES."

 

The facts are simple.  The President and his administration have conspired with the large business and agricultural interests in our country to artificially depress and hold-down wages.  They have done this at a tremendous cost to all law-abiding, tax-paying American citizens and it needs to stop now! 

 

The President is responsible for seeing that the laws of our nation are enforced and upheld.  I promise to be that President and will never sell out the vast majority of Americans to the interests of big business and agricultural interests for illegal, cheap labor.