Well known economist, Edwin Rubenstein, in a report just released blames the crumbling infrastructure that Obama will spend billions to repair on a “massive” immigrant population.
From World Net Daily:
The United States will need $1.6 trillion to repair damage to its infrastructure from a massive influx of immigrants, a new report reveals.
In his report titled, “The Twin Crisis: Immigration and Infrastructure,” prominent researcher Edwin S. Rubenstein examines 15 categories of infrastructure: airports, border security, bridges, dams and levees, electricity (the power grids), hazardous waste removal, hospitals, mass transit, parks and recreation facilities, ports and navigable waterways, public schools, railroads, roads and highways, solid waste and trash, and water and sewer systems.
Rubenstein, a financial analyst and former contributing editor of Forbes and economics editor of National Review, claims the nation is facing a crisis – with immigration responsible for at least 80 percent of spending needed to expand the U.S. infrastructure before the middle of this century.
“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.”
While immigration policy has been hotly debated for a number of years, Rubenstein writes that its impact on infrastructure is rarely discussed.
Here is one of the statistics from the report that I found interesting:
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.
In light of compelling statistics saying otherwise, I really don’t know how Newsweek can report that Lewiston, ME is now a boom town because of its large refugee population. It might ‘boom” from government (taxpayer) funds flowing to the area through grants and welfare, but that is still a cost to the economy as Rubenstein suggests.