While bringing refugees to the US from certain parts of the world poses a security risk for America, often forgotten is the huge cost to US taxpayers (federal, state and local) of placing them in communities already loaded with poor people, a practice the mayor of Springfield, Mass. recently pointed out.
And, before the refugee industry starts shouting about the fact that some refugees ultimately pay taxes, in reality very few even reach the income threshhold to pay taxes and many who make small amounts of income can actually file to get money back from the government through earned income tax credits while not ever having paid in anything.
Here is Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart in an article entitled: ‘Refugees Will Cost Taxpayers an Estimated $4.1 Billion in FY 2017’ says:
American taxpayers will spend more than $4.1 billion in the 2017 budget to support the 519,018 refugees who have been resettled by the federal government in the United States since October 2009, according to a cost estimate by Breitbart News.
To put that very large number in context, $4.1 billion can buy 10,677 new homes for $384,000 each, which is the average price of a new home sold in the United States in December 2016. Or it could buy 170,124 new autos for $24,100 each, which is the manufacturer’s suggested retail price for a 2017 Chevrolet Malibu.
Even if the Trump administration were to entirely shut down the flow of refugees into the United States in FY 2018 and beyond, the refugees who have already arrived in the country will cost at least another $3.5 billion in 2018, and about $2 billion to $3 billion annually thereafter until FY 2022 and beyond.
Here is one of several useful charts prepared by Leahy. This summarizes the COST PER REFUGEE:
For more fun with numbers, continue reading here.
Where is Congress?
Donald Trump can cut the numbers arriving in the US while he is in office and can tinker with the regulations, but unless Congress grows a spine and reforms this out-of-control federal program, in 4 or 8 years we will go back to a wide open spigot! There is a limit to what can be done with a phone and a pen as Obama learned the hard way.