Immigration and the Deficit
Creating Paths to Citizenship Can
Reduce the Growing National Deficit
As of September 30, 2017, the U.S. budget deficit was $665.7 billion or about 3.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As a result of the tax bill, the budget deficit was expected to rise to $1 trillion in 2019, which is equivalent of about 4.8% of GDP. The U.S. budget that was just passed would increase next year’s deficits to about $1.2 trillion.
How might this big increase in the U.S. budget deficit be reduced? Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Congressional Budget Office Director under President H. W. Bush and currently President of the conservative American Action Forum, concluded in 2013 that increasing the number of immigrants would reduce the federal deficit by about $300 billion per year or by $2.7 trillion over 10 years.
A 2016 Center for American Progress study found that deporting 7 million unauthorized immigrants nationally, about five percent of the U.S. workforce, would amount to a loss of $4.7 trillion in gross domestic product and a loss of $900 billion in federal government revenues. This study concluded that GDP would immediately drop 1.6% and would drop by 2.6% over 10 years. The federal deficit would increase close to a trillion dollars by 2026.
In June 2012, Think Again MN launched a history series that examines politics and policy-making in Minnesota during the last century from the immediate post World War II years up through the 1990s. That era witnessed fierce legislative battles at the State Capitol but it was also a time of shared values that cut across partisan lines.
MN's Leading Election System
MN's Leading Election System
With Secretary of State Steve Simon
Listen to Secretary of State Steve Simon's excellent presentation on MN's outstanding election system emulated by many other states at the Think Again Brooklyns forum January 19, 2016. Secretary Simon includes ways in which it can be improved, and he explains why it is important to vote. He concludes with a quote from a tee shirt: "Failure to vote is not an act of rebellion. It is an act of surrender."
Get details on how to vote at http://mnvotes.org
Oregon's Automatic Voter Registration
How Oregon Became the Easiest Place to Vote in the US
By Lornet Turnbull
YES! Magazine
October 8, 2016
In January, Oregon became the first state in the country to begin automatically registering eligible citizens to vote when they obtain or renew their driver's licenses or state IDs, completely shifting the burden of voter registration from the individual to the government.