Don’t blame illegals for state budget messhttp://www.mantecabulletin.com/news/article/4556/By Dennis WyattManaging Editordwyatt@mantecabulletin.com209-249-3532POSTED June 13, 2009 2:21 a.m.Are the illegal residents washing dishes in a restaurant or picking fruit the root of all evil when it comes to California’s economic maladies?A growing number of folks seem to think so as they contend they are costing the state upwards of $5 billion in services and therefore are the cause of our current $24 billion state deficit.It is just plain wrong and hypocritical to blame illegals for the mess we’re in now. It got to this point for the same reason why illegal immigrant has risen to the level it has – our own self-serving interests. As long as the money was flowing and the politicians were borrowing into the future to placate us by not raising taxes for all the things that we insist the government provide us we were content. We were splurging without having money to cover the tab.The same is true of our food costs and other products from industries that rely heavily on illegal immigrants. They are the reason our food costs over the course of 30 years – and we’re not talking a fast food meal or a frozen-pop-in-the-microwave creation – has shrunk to a much slower part of our paycheck. Because we don’t do the jobs and their labor is so cheap, we have freed up money to spend on everything else from i-Pods to buying bigger and bigger houses.Pull every illegal immigrant out of California’s economy today and just see how long it takes for prices to soar and purchasing power to dump. It also wouldn’t take long to hit the California export balance sheet hard as our No. 1 industry is still agriculture.How many people even in a recession are willing to take menial jobs? The answer is very few and that runs the gamut from someone cleaning crabs in a Maryland processing plant to doing landscaping work in Southern California.Illegal immigrants also pay taxes when they buy goods. Many pay property taxes as well and there are those who actually pay income taxes. They aren’t exactly getting a free ride.That doesn’t mean something shouldn’t be done to address illegal immigration and to try to curb it.Having said that, our state’s No. 1 industry would collapse and we’d having soaring food prices if it wasn’t for the for that illegals are carrying whether it is picking canning, processing or even working at the end of the food chain in restaurants.Illegals for the most part aren’t afraid of hard work and long days. They are grateful they have a source of income. You can’t make the same statement about a lot of other people who bellyache about working even in the face of 10 percent unemployment statewide.So should we eliminate all services for illegals to try and bridge the deficit by throwing them out of school, denying them health care and even protection against law breakers whether they are labor contractors or common criminals? It would be fair if you then exempt them from all taxes.The bottom line is much starker. The only way you can justify doing that is to cease the game that we all or complacent in which is using the sweat of illegal immigrants to keep food prices down. It is their labor that is subsidizing food costs. Round them up and kick them all out. Then you’ll see how many people you can get to go from the unemployment line to working 10 hour days in the fields.A better way to go if we really want to solve the state’s budget mess is to aggressively go after fraud and fat. Hire more welfare fraud investigators and start slimming down the reams of regulations so we can thin the ranks of overstuffed state bureaucracies.Argue all you want about how illegal immigrations are destroying our economy, but they are adding to our productivity while pencil-pushing bureaucrats and those committing fraud weaken it and are slowly sucking the lifeblood out of California’s vitality.

You live in friggin' Idaho -- what are you afraid of -- Taco Bell will open up a restaurant in Boise?

It is a fact that illegal immigrants take more from our economy then they put in. I'm sorry but I will never agree with rewarding illegal behavior by giving them a job and welfare. If they want to come here legally I have no problem with that, it is the illegal immigrants I have a problem with.

They are indeed killing California.We can only afford them with the FairTax in which they would pay their way

There is nothing wrong with using prisoners to do field work. At least then they would be punished for their offense and earning their air conditioned cells and mandatory cable tv.Maybe they would think twice before they re offend if they were actually punished.The current invasion of illegals started 20 years ago and in the last 10 years has become a flood. The price of food and services has not dropped during that time. By your reasoning prices should have been very high (because Americans were doing the jobs) and prices would now be dropping (because illegals are doing the jobs). I don't see that happening. It is a known fact that illegals are a drain on our economy, they take out more than they put in. The Feds only allow it because they are hoping if they act sympathetic to the illegal cause they will get votes.If illegals were truly the answer to the economic problems in the US we would be freaking dropping money from the roof tops. 20 years ago we were prosperous, 20 years later (after illegal invasion) we are in a recession.

Dennis Malteca is full of frijollis...Even if illegals are 10% responsible for California`s economic ruin-it is way too much,,,,,,,,,,,, because they should not EVEN be in California, PERIOD...( I wash my own dishes & pick my own"fruit.. of the loom".)

You said it right Reality.....When you come from one of the states that these people have eating off of in so many way, then we will talk.I live in Texas and we know here that we are the next in line.Did you know our medicaid system was broke at the end of last year?Now I know its not all the illegals fault as we have a lot of people sucking at the govt tit here, but by God we sure would have been able to hold on a little longer if we wasn't feeding,housing,giving health care to these people.I bet you are a liberal and if so, Im sure that you wouldn't mind taking a few of these people off our hands here and take FULL care of them.

WELL SAID! and it shows us that it's not only the Hispanics that know they contribute a lot to the U.S.Still laughing at this comment:"You live in friggin' Idaho -- what are you afraid of -- Taco Bell will open up a restaurant in Boise?"