RudyTHEGANGSTER

We have 10 to 30 million illegal immigrants in this country. Apparently, somewhere between 3 to 15% filed their taxes.

Things have worked out alright. I am okay with it. None of our recessions or depressions have been caused by this. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's really not that important. I trust the market. Well, the Great Depression was caused by a combination of tariffs, bad fiscal and monetary policy, immigration restriction, and according to keynesian economists an unequal distribution of wealth. But the Fed's deflationary policies in the late 20s and early 30s played a role.

The debt is not to the federal reserve, it is to the bondholders of the debt. True, like China. The Federal Reserve pulls in only 300 million of profit a year...hardly a scary amount. Private banks with advanced market knowledge is scarier. More often than not? Please cite evidence. Then you please cite evidence first for the claim that [most] illegals pay income taxes. In reality, millions are entirely off the tax paying grid, as they are essentially day laborers or "black" (in the off the books sense) labor. I specifically wrote that when they are not paid in cash (off the books) they pay income taxes. That is indisputable. Of course, we don't know what percentage of these workers are paid in cash. I think it would be very hard to figure that out. Some pay income taxes and some don't. I don't know the exact figures, but it is baseless to say that they don't pay income taxes because, well, at least some do. So are we talking about a minority or a majority? Assuming it is 50% on the books, how much of that 50% get earned income tax credit? So, without doing a crap load of research, it is likely that the majority of illegals do not pay towards government programs. Most taxes within our progressive system are paid by the rich--so how much are illegals actually paying into huckabee's program? In reality, the group as a whole is getting more services than what they pay for...which is all fine and dandy if we like a welfare state. However, to ignore the fact that things like this act as a financial incentive to illegally enter the country is ludicris.

The debt is not to the federal reserve, it is to the bondholders of the debt. True, like China. The Federal Reserve pulls in only 300 million of profit a year...hardly a scary amount. Private banks with advanced market knowledge is scarier. More often than not? Please cite evidence. Then you please cite evidence first for the claim that [most] illegals pay income taxes. In reality, millions are entirely off the tax paying grid, as they are essentially day laborers or "black" (in the off the books sense) labor.

Did the 2 year old whose parents brought him/her here, break a law? No, but his parents didn't pay the taxes to support the program. Says who? They buy things (therefore pay sales taxes), they live in either rental units or own a home (therefore pay property taxes directly or indirectly), and they make an income (if not paid in cash, they pay income taxes). Please be more informed before you open your mouth. More often than not illegals get earned income tax credit...so again, they a largely not contributing due to their illegal status.

True. Point taken. I'm becoming more and more of the belief that we have to assimilate those that are in our country already in to society and in to citizenship. First we have to strengthen our borders with more than just words and politics. Largely to me it is an issue of security as well. So that means physically securing the borders as well as getting rid of financial inentives for illegals. A friend of mine when I went to college was an illegal immigrant from Pakistan and had FAFSA pick up the whole tab. That is just insane when we are threatened by muslim radicals. Plus, it would not hurt to stop giving student visas to countries with our potential enemies. We didn't do that during WW2. It's just a smart way to do things.

Did the 2 year old whose parents brought him/her here, break a law? No, but his parents didn't pay the taxes to support the program.

When crime families begin ruling this country, this is not an entirely unwarranted response. Of course, the man is an idiot, because those 2 campaign workers are innocents. STFU. I don't think you entirely got my joke...

I think his policy position is a good idea. If a child came here illegally at the age of, say, 3, and went to school, did well, and didn't commit any crimes, it makes sense to give him legal status and allow him to obtain financial aid to go to college. It's not his fault his parents came here illegally, and the country can benefit greatly from responsible, smart, and motivated students/future workers/professionals. Things like this ARE the reason why there is an illegal immigration problem. We cannot possibly build a wall and enforce laws that are so air tight that they are going to do something about this problem unless we are draconian. So, if we get rid of financial incentives (like subsudized housing, college, free healthcare, food in almost all cities, and etcetera) we only encourage the breaking of our laws. See, this is the problem. This discussion initially centered around the specific policy Huckabee enacted with respect to college education for the children of illegal immigrants and you compare it to a series of policies that are far more general and provide more immediate incentives. There are alot of things about Huckabee's policy that differentiate it from the other social welfare policies you list: 1) In order to get the scholarship, the student has to apply for citizenship. (Whether or not you believe that we should try to stop illegals from currently entering this country, there is still the problem of dealing with the millions who are already here. Because it's foolish to believe that we can just send them all back or hope that they go back on their own, getting those already here to become citizens is actually in the best interest for people on either side of the immigration debate.) 2) It's not an immediate incentive. Any economist will tell you that when people are making rational choices, incentives are heavily discounted with respect to time. (For example, most people prefer $10 now as opposed to $20 one month from now even though the expected value of that $10 in 1 month will be less than $20.) Given that, do you honestly believe a family of illegal immigrants allow the possibility of a paid college education (because the kid has to first get good enough grades to qualify) for their kid 15 years down the line to factor into their decision on whether to enter the country now? I'd say that 99% of what motivates them is the immediate prospect of acquiring a better paying job. To think that they have 15 year plans or even the resources to know about this program while in their native country is kind of absurd, and absent those two factors Huckabee's program can't facotr into their decision. 3) After attaining citizenship, the student becomes a tax payer. So, these are the possibilities: We become draconian about things (regarding immigration because although I'd love to see the welfare state significantly reduced it ain't happening in my lifetime, and I'm 21) and the kid retains his illegal status, gets paid some low wage job no citizen would dare take and takes from the welfare state without providing anything back. Or, we give the kid who performs well in school the same opportunity to go to college that his peers are getting. He/she goes to college, thereby increasing his/her expected earnings for the future, and they have to pay taxes on what they make after graduation because the likelihood of a highly motivated, high achieving college graudate becoming a ward of the welfare state is pretty low. I understand that, in general, these policies are not very conducive to responding to the illegal immigration problem, but my question is, given the specifics of Huckabee's policy, isn't it a sensible policy from the perspective of a governor trying to do whats' best for his state since it turns hard working, smart kids whose parents made a mistake 15 years ago into taxpayers who remain in state (because the scholarship applies to state-run universities). That's a fair reply, but the fact is that illegal immigrants did not break a law by mistake. It is a reward to those who commit a criminal act.

How is it that things are worse now than in 2005 and all of the sudden we are "winning?"

When crime families begin ruling this country, this is not an entirely unwarranted response. Of course, the man is an idiot, because those 2 campaign workers are innocents.

No, sir. The incentive will always exist for people to come to this country as long as their standard of living is so much higher than the surrounding areas. Want to fix the immigration problem? Help other countries fix their economies. Want to do that? Free trade. We are speaking of artifically added incentives. For example, if the healtchare, education, roofs, and food in many cases for illegal immigrants were not paid for by the taxpayer, employers would have to pay for these things. So, in reality, our oddball immigration policy is nothing more than a thinly veiled corporate welfare policy. It keeps labor prices down below living wages but sustains this illegal labor force by making taxpayers subsudize it. If anything needs subsudies, it is usually a bad idea in its own right. So, if you kill the welfare state, you are only going to be left with immigrants that really want to work their asses off. Of course, in a war, we should also have physical defenses on our borders. That is what gets me. The same people who are anti-immigration were immigrants 80-100 years ago. Love that delicious hypocrisy. There was no welfare state paying their way.

I think his policy position is a good idea. If a child came here illegally at the age of, say, 3, and went to school, did well, and didn't commit any crimes, it makes sense to give him legal status and allow him to obtain financial aid to go to college. It's not his fault his parents came here illegally, and the country can benefit greatly from responsible, smart, and motivated students/future workers/professionals. Things like this ARE the reason why there is an illegal immigration problem. We cannot possibly build a wall and enforce laws that are so air tight that they are going to do something about this problem unless we are draconian. So, if we get rid of financial incentives (like subsudized housing, college, free healthcare, food in almost all cities, and etcetera) we only encourage the breaking of our laws.

Somehow I do not trust his rect move to the right on immigration and welfare. In all fairness, his plan did require that the student in question apply for US Citizenship in order to qualify. I would apply to be a mexican citizen if it would pay down my grad school debt!

Somehow I do not trust his rect move to the right on immigration and welfare.

Cities should start experimenting with a German system of education, which gives some students specialties and training in jobs, and other students the well-rounded education. I'm pretty sure NYC had something like this in the 70's ( and may still have it, to be honest. I don't know). NOt sure if it was successful, but it has been tried. I know for a fact that this did not occur. If you can provide an example and link to anything, that would be appreciated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_H...f_New_York_City Take Brooklyn Technical High School: "Brooklyn Technical High School, commonly called Brooklyn Tech or just Tech, and also administratively sometimes as High School 430, is a New York City public high school that specializes in engineering, math and science and is the largest specialized high school for science, technology, engineering and mathematics in the United States. [3] Together with Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Science, it is one of three original specialized science high schools, operated by the New York City Department of Education, all three of which were cited by The Washington Post in 2006 as among the best magnet schools in the United States.[4] Admission is by competitive examination though, as a public school, there is no tuition fee and only residents of the City of New York are eligible to attend.[5]" I knew I had read about it in a book (Fortress Of Solitude). It isn't a city wide thing, but these are publicly run schools in Brooklyn which follow much the same principles you outlined previously. Apparently they are successful, like I said I wasn't sure. So, yes, a system like that would work, but it doesn't necesarily have to be independent. You pulled a 180, and began agreeing with my original point. However, the schools you noted are elite schools that cherry pick their students that include a well-rounded education WITH a specialization. In my honest opinion, you can yake a NYC school and make it "The School of Bacon Frying," but as long as you cherry pick students, it would be great. Becaon High School is such an example. It is essentially a storage building turned communist training camp, but they choose their students...and now they are considered one of the finest high schools in America. The specialization I would speak of would be much more extreme and it would be offered particularly to the bottom 50%, not the top 2%. I'm not sure I ever disagreed with you on that specific topic. My point is there are schools that do such a thing, whether or not you think they do it right is an altogether different topic, but it seems to me like you will try to write off any successes in the public schooling system to serve your own point. I do apologize for misunderstanding your original post, but let me make clear I am not a total enemy of public education. However, the problems with urban education in my opinion are much greater than what can be fixed with government interference. I am talking about gigantic social problems and ill conceived approaches to what education even means.

Cities should start experimenting with a German system of education, which gives some students specialties and training in jobs, and other students the well-rounded education. I'm pretty sure NYC had something like this in the 70's ( and may still have it, to be honest. I don't know). NOt sure if it was successful, but it has been tried. I know for a fact that this did not occur. If you can provide an example and link to anything, that would be appreciated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_H...f_New_York_City Take Brooklyn Technical High School: "Brooklyn Technical High School, commonly called Brooklyn Tech or just Tech, and also administratively sometimes as High School 430, is a New York City public high school that specializes in engineering, math and science and is the largest specialized high school for science, technology, engineering and mathematics in the United States. [3] Together with Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Science, it is one of three original specialized science high schools, operated by the New York City Department of Education, all three of which were cited by The Washington Post in 2006 as among the best magnet schools in the United States.[4] Admission is by competitive examination though, as a public school, there is no tuition fee and only residents of the City of New York are eligible to attend.[5]" I knew I had read about it in a book (Fortress Of Solitude). It isn't a city wide thing, but these are publicly run schools in Brooklyn which follow much the same principles you outlined previously. Apparently they are successful, like I said I wasn't sure. So, yes, a system like that would work, but it doesn't necesarily have to be independent. You pulled a 180, and began agreeing with my original point. However, the schools you noted are elite schools that cherry pick their students that include a well-rounded education WITH a specialization. In my honest opinion, you can yake a NYC school and make it "The School of Bacon Frying," but as long as you cherry pick students, it would be great. Becaon High School is such an example. It is essentially a storage building turned communist training camp, but they choose their students...and now they are considered one of the finest high schools in America. The specialization I would speak of would be much more extreme and it would be offered particularly to the bottom 50%, not the top 2%.

But what will become of my bumper sticker? jk God I hope that is true, but if Hillary can win Florida, California, and the rest of the typical blue states, it does not matter that the popular vote in certain states would be horribly against her. I just made a 50 dollar bet this thanksgiving she will be the next president. That's a bet I hope to lose.

I don't mind the fairtax. The fairtax and his stance on gun ownership are definite pluses (his stance on immigration is questionable because he pandered to illegals as governor). He is the only prez candidate, as far as I know, to carry a concealed firearm everywhere he goes. Furthermore, he endorses a federal carry law. If the government can abuse the commerce clause to protect civil rights, I do not see why they cannot protect the right to bear arms. As long as the 14th amendment exists, localities have no right to abrogate the right to bear arms.

Just what the country needs these days, a social conservative and a fiscal liberal. Now THERE's a winning combination.... Definitely a scary combo.

Cities should start experimenting with a German system of education, which gives some students specialties and training in jobs, and other students the well-rounded education. I'm pretty sure NYC had something like this in the 70's ( and may still have it, to be honest. I don't know). NOt sure if it was successful, but it has been tried. I know for a fact that this did not occur. If you can provide an example and link to anything, that would be appreciated.

My wife, as a first year teacher, gets paid a ridiculously low amount for what she actually does. I won't allow her to do more out of classroom time then she has to based on her pay and what her hourly wage is when you combine out of classroom time. I strongly disagree with the notion that higher pay would not equal better teachers and thus a better learning environment for the teacher. If my wife was paid more, she'd put in more time out of the classroom and in turn, give a better experience to her students. If there was less red tape, she would be able to do more in less time. If teachers were allowed to write off on our taxes on our business expenses, like buying classroom things, we would be able to keep more of our money. The highly regulated and expensive system we have now does not address either of these things. Privately owned schools will just allow the people with money to get good education, while those who can't afford it won't be able to go to school, or will end up at an awful institution. And that's not already happening?

A free market system would reward better teachers with better pay and therefore improve the system, but teacher's pay has very little to do with quality of education? Am I missing something? The one thing you are missing is that truly good teachers are stuck being paid at the fixed salary increase system alongside bad teachers, thereby taking away the finanial incentive for teachers to want to improve their craft. Thus, we have a system that does not reward competance, it merely rewards years in the system regardless of teaching skill or effort. In theory, wouldn't increasing the salary of a public school teacher make it more lucrative competition wise and therefore more likely to attract good teachers and on the same field as private schools? Many private schools pay less (see parochial and non-super elite private schools), but because they do not subject teachers to a crap load of red tape, the product is better. Teachers teach better when they have more preps, creativity, and the ability to more easily work with parents. Apparently, when parents choose their child's school (and pay for it) they take a more concerned and active role in their child's education. Parental support, especially in high needs schools, is a must. I'm guessing you are trying to say we should make teachers compete for their salary? Something like "the more students in your class who get As or who get better test scores, the higher you are ranked, the more your salary becomes", right? And the worse you do, the lower your salary or you lose your job? Not really. Such test-score based salary increases encourage teachers to encourage cheating. I merely advocate the removing of red tape and letting the market decide salary. I agree that bad teachers need to lose their jobs and federal control over schools might be too distant, but how does Ron Paul address any of this? By getting rid of federal red tape, the federal grant money, and the federal mandated testing, you have less cheating, cheaper schools, and more teacher freedom. However, to be completely honest, I have worked in a school that if it did not have standardized testing, it would graduate practically illiterate students. So, I am not opposed to state level examinations. However, education in this country has not improved with an increase in per-pupil spending. So money is not going to fix this problem. Increased regulation has not fixed it. Deregulation is definitely worth a shot. How have private schools offered quality education all these years, many times for less money than the public schools pay? And how exactly do you equalize situations? Isn't it implicit that the teacher who teaches in a wealthy public neighborhood has a better chance of success than a teacher who teaches in inner city school? Less distractions, more cooperative students, better parents to help, tutors, small class sizes because of small class populations. You cannot equalize the situations. Anyone who has taught in a city has observed this. You can spend nearly 20,000 perpupil like in Newark NJ and the schools will still be God awful. What is needed is much less regulation so that urban school systems may totally redevelop their educational programs. Quite frankly, with graduation rates of 50% WITH rampid cheating among teachers, it is simply not realistic to attempt pproviding the same exact education for every student in the city as in the suburbs. Cities should start experimenting with a German system of education, which gives some students specialties and training in jobs, and other students the well-rounded education. If it were all up to me, I would give only 50% of students access to the well-rounded education. Ironically, not only would you emulate the contemporary graduation rates for the run of the mill education program (because students would compete to join the "elite" schools instead of taking them for granted), you would graduate more students from the other schools with useful skills. This means less teens become adults who turn to crime. This leads to a more stable society, which in turn leads to better students. Now, I am not saying my program is perfect, I am merely speculating. However, the system we have now DOES NOT WORK and reduc ed class size and increased spending have not improved a thing. (Though, as a NY teacher, the relatively good salary and non-insane claass sizes are certainly nice...) If I am a top of the line teacher, why would I go to a situation that would make me less likely to succeed, such as an inner city school, vs. a situation that would make me more likely to succeed? Teachers with the most brains are almost always not the best city school teachers. Teachers with street smarts and good classroom management techniques are the best. What we need are more people from the inner-city to teach in the inner-city. Personally, I feel that my ivy league masters degree is a useless piece of sh*t in the bronx. Teachers with much less education, I humbly admit, can do much better when they have ethnic and cultural advantages working for them. It appears that you are advocating that we take some of the future rocket scientists and stockbrokers, and turn them into teachers. Those people, unless they have street smarts, are not helpful in the inner-city. Chicago has this exact situation. The out suburbs pay teachers much much more, and they actively steal teachers who teach in the city by offering higher salaries and benefits plus better kids. The city can never keep its good teachers. It is not just salaries. Minority youth who grown up in environments without whites are highly racist of white teachers and the surrounding neighborhood is often the same. Personally, I have been a victim of a "hate crime" on my way from work because I am white. Those sort of things play a much larger role in the exodus of teachers to the suburbs. Cities are dangerous and education is not valued as highly. Teachers like having their work valued. A lot of this has nothing to do with money. Don't you think parachial schools do better because they have more funding too? They have less. But maybe your point is that a privately run school works better at weeding out bad teachers than publicly run schools which have to keep on teachers? Perhaps. But what stops a privately run school that looks at profit margin and sees other factors other than its employees as preventing max profit margin? What if they start kicking bad kids out? What if they feel an inner city school is hemorging their profits so they reduce resources because it isn't benecial to keep it open? Don't we have major problems in the health care world including HMOs rejecting necessary procedures because they look only at the bottom line? In my honest opinioon, one of the things that hurt education the most is the practice of no longer leaving back poor students and catering so much to increasingly disruptive students. Disruptive students literally ruin the education of many more students than their number. Perhaps a school which thinks of the bottom line instead of asking for tax increases every time it has a problem will get more accomplished. Regardless of the preceding, your wife's issues with her job are only worsened by the federal government. Her salary is determined by the locality in which she works. I am sure she would like not dealing with No Child Left Behind.

Paul wants the Federal government to have nothing to do with schools. True. He believes that states and localities can make better decisions concerning the education of their population than some far off, impersonal, bureaucracy in DC. Plus, a free market approach to education would reward better teachers with better pay and mediocre teachers with less. Charter schools and high end private schools better compensate teachers. Regular publics and parochial schools pay less. In my honest opinion, because I am an educator, teacher pay has very little to do with the quality of education (and research shows the same applies with class size.) The problems with America's education system are largely cultural and the result of the public school monopoly that exists. If schools compete, like in Belgium, they would be better.

To be honest, Huckabee's rise is to me exciting. Now as per my "scholarship," I make no such claims. I am not going to do hours of research to look smart on a forum. I do at least have the respect to back up what I say with things that are based in reality, and are thus able to be referenced. If you want to actually make an intelligent counter-point, you can try to find "evidence" of Huckabee's fiscal responsibility. You won't. I mean, you didn't even know Huckabee was a supporter of the Fair Tax.