If you are thinking about boosting the economy this is a good thing. If you care about open space and the environment this is a bad thing. I told you I am behind in my posting, so here is mention of a report in Immigration Daily about a background paper written for Congress from a few weeks ago.
The Congressional Budget Office recently released a “Background Paper on The Outlook for Housing Starts, 2009-2012” which shows the positive impact of immigrants on the real estate sector of the economy. The report says “Over the past 25 years, the annual change in the number of households due to population growth has trended neither upward nor downward, as a rise in net immigration has offset a decline in the natural increase of the adult population.” In other words, without the immigration inflow that we have seen in the past quarter century, the state of real estate values in the US right now would be even gloomier than it is. The report goes on to say “Higher immigration than expected would boost household formation, adding to housing starts, whereas lower immigration would reduce the number of starts.” Congress should seriously consider increasing immigration in light of the recent sharp decline in real estate values across the country.
But, wait, didn’t giving mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them bring about much of our economic meltdown. Is this report suggesting we do more of that?
You might go back and review this post about the “ecological footprint” each immigrant leaves and re-watch the Numbers USA film .
Just as our population is stablizing these Budget office guys are suggesting we need more people so builders can keep making money. Did you ever wonder what would happen if the Environmental titans went up against the Immigration titans? Well, it won’t happen anytime soon because the major environmental groups in the US are afraid of the issue because they take so much of their funding from the same Leftist foundations and individuals as the Open Borders people do. Immigration is a verboten issue at the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Audubon Society etc. etc.