nate33 wrote:I clicked on the article in the hopes that I would learn something new.
I was disappointed.
The very liberal Center for American Progress predicts that the removal of 750,000 DACA recipients would cost the country $433B over 10 years. Let's be generous and assume this estimate is correct and not merely pie-in-the-sky propaganda to serve their cause.
750,000 people producing $433B over 10 years amounts to a GDP per capita per year of $57,600.
Cato's probably more realistic estimate is just $280B over 10 years, which is more like $37,000 per capita.
Economists estimate that American GDP (produced by other 325 million Americans) over the next 10 years will be $236 trillion. That's a GDP per capita per year of
$73,000.
So even in these, likely optimistic, scenarios by CAP and CATO, DACA is bringing down the national average.
I've stayed out of this thread, largely b/c I find it so depressing to read what you write here, nate. You are a thoughtful human being on a broad range of subjects, & you seem to have an understanding cast of mind in many situations (insofar as one can tell from the kinds of interactions we have online), yet you provide what is obviously an intellectually skewed commentary like the above....
It's irrelevant that DACA folks are, overall, below national average contributors to GDP. For starters, why don't you remove the contributions to GDP by the top 5% of those 325m Americans, & then re-run your comparison & report the results?
Well... I suppose there's really no reason to bother, actually, because the raw "national average" is, in any case, a figure of no consequence in this kind of discussion. Nor would the economy be made to prosper by removing people who earn a below-average income. Non-scalable actions are unlikely to produce positive results.
Think about it, nate. After you remove some below-average segment, the new average is higher. Hence, a whole new set of people are now below average. If that's a basis for action to improve the economy, then lets remove some of them too, right? &, again, we have a new & higher average, meaning that once again we have a set of people to target for removal. Rinse & repeat -- it never ends.
The idea that this could somehow lead to economic progress is obviously ridiculous. What it would lead to is the destruction of the economy.