Open-Borders Politicians Want Even Higher Taxes to Pay for Illegal Migrants
Many will likely agree that shameless brazenness is an all too common feature of modern-day politics. However, politicians in New York who recently called for increasing taxes to pay for the skyrocketing costs of the city’s own migrant crisis – for which the open-borders policies of the pro-mass-migration lobby are directly responsible – take the cake.
Back in mid-September, Democratic State Senator and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Julia Salazar (who represents northern Brooklyn), told the New York Post that the answer to the crisis was increasing taxes. “We should increase taxes because it’s [an] economically just policy to offset all costs for our state to function,” Salazar asserted, adding that “even if our city and state hadn’t seen an increase in migrants seeking asylum, this moment makes it all the more important for the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes.” Translation: the migrant crisis is a wonderful excuse to further hike taxes. State Senator Jabari Brisport, a fellow DSA member also representing northern Brooklyn, supports Salazar’s proposals, proudly declaring that “[w]e’re still organizing to tax the rich through the same revenue-raising bills we’ve been fighting for for years.” Not surprisingly, the idea was also enthusiastically backed by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC).
The above statements reflect what has been the far-left’s playbook for decades, the Cloward-Piven strategy. Back in 1966, radical sociologists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven published an article in The Nation which called for maximizing the number of people on public benefits. The goal was to generate a crisis of the welfare system to force through income redistribution in the form of a guaranteed basic income. One reason why the radical left supports open borders for large numbers of low-skilled and low-income migrants, while simultaneously combatting any limitations on their welfare use, is precisely because it furthers the Cloward-Piven agenda. That such mass migration will justify demands for more income redistribution is exactly the point.
Salazar and Brisport’s calls for tax hikes were a response to Mayor Adams, who admitted that caring for the new migrants will cost the city $12 billion over three fiscal years. To cover the costs, the mayor has resorted to slashing city services and budgets, and ordering all city agencies to cut their budgets by 5 percent by November. He warned that if nothing else changes, these cuts may even increase to 15 percent by spring 2024. What this translates into in practice is cuts to overtime pay for New York City police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers, and the Department of Corrections. Salazar, Brisport and others were critical of this, but, rather than revising their open-borders, pro-sanctuary views, their “solution” is to take even more from New Yorkers at a time when inflation has significantly reduced the purchasing power of Americans across the nation.
The tax-happy politicians also ignore the fact that New York state residents already face the highest tax burden in the nation. New Yorkers pay approximately $9.9 billion annually (or $1,321 per New York household) to subsidize almost 1.6 million illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children in the state. (The total nationwide cost stands at least $151 billion). Moreover, even if taxes were increased, that would not solve the NYC housing shortage crisis but would likely result in even more illegal migrants arriving in the city attracted by news that more free stuff was coming their way. The growing and unending tax burden may push some New Yorkers to decide to finally leave New York for lower-tax destinations. Between 2020 and 2023, over 5 percent of the total population of New York City did just that and left, taking a trillion dollars in assets with them. Obviously, this further depletes the state’s tax base.
To be fair to State Senators Salazar and Brisport, they are merely saying the quiet part out loud. Illegal migration has long been touted by its apologists as a kind of cost-savings program for Americans. The reality is that cheap foreign labor is not actually cheap. Forcing Americans to pay for it – be it through more debt, cuts to essential services their taxes already pay for, or outright tax increases – is immoral and unfair.