In the wake of Arizona’s Show Me Your Papers Act, I keep seeing this wingnut meme about how much all these damn Mex’cans are costing us.
…they [undocumented immigrants] have no right to be in this country. Arizonans did not vote to have an open border with Mexico that floods them with poor, low-skilled immigrants who cost taxpayers untold millions a year in additional costs.
And,
I’d wager that the costs of illegal immigration — economic, social and environmental — on Arizona dwarf the costs on California from global warming, at least so far.
This notion that people who come here to work for low wages are somehow a net-drain on the US economy has always struck me as self-refuting wingnut bullshit.
Where are the numbers to support this claim?
More recently, a 2007 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office examined 29 reports on state and local costs published over 15 years in an attempt to answer this question. CBO concluded that most of the estimates determined that illegal immigrants impose a net cost to state and local governments but “that impact is most likely modest.”
Who do you believe? CBO or Rich Lowry?
*****
Note the idiot holding the sign in the photo above cannot spell. 
I have not seen a single 'sign' these idiots carry and wave about that has been spelled correctly or grammatically correct either for that matter.
Real confidence builders - they are.