Report: The Twin Crises: Immigration and Infrastructure

A new report released Tuesday by the group Social Contract at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC asserted that "hospitals throughout the country have been inundated by uninsured immigrants" and that "the financial strain has affected the quality of medical services, forced hospitals to close clinics and emergency rooms, and put infrastructure expansion plans on hold."

...While advocates for illegal aliens and pro-amnesty supporters maintain that statistics and other evidence that shows that providing emergency medical care to uninsured illegals and related unreimbursed costs are flawed or biased, studies HSToday.us has reviewed and authorites HSToday.us has interviewed assert just as strongly that that argument is unfounded. Indeed, studies by GAO and the Department of Health and Human Services tend to support the conclusion of the new Social Contract study.

"If the infrastructure crisis could be fixed by spending money, there would be no crisis," Mr. Rubenstein explained in a statement. "Since 1987, capital spending on transportation infrastructure has increased by 2.1 percent per year above the inflation rate. At $233 billion (2004 dollars), infrastructure is already one of the largest categories of government spending. Our infrastructure is 'crumbling' because population growth has overwhelmed the ability of even these vast sums to expand capacity."...

In his research, Rubenstein finds that the average immigrant household generates a fiscal debt of $3,408 after federal benefits and taxes are considered. At the state and local level, the fiscal debt amounts to $4.398 per immigrant household.

"There are currently about 36 million immigrants living in about 9 million households, so the aggregate deficit attributable to immigrants comes to $70.3 billion," he writes. "… Immigrants could deplete the amount of funds available for infrastructure by as much as $70 billion per year."