Category: Where to find information

Your tax dollars help refugees open businesses

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One of the most frequent questions we get here is:  How are these refugees getting money to open businesses in my city, when Americans are having a tough time getting loans?

Well, one way is through the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s Microenterprise Program.  That is where your tax dollars are funneled to a federal contractor who in turn gets to be the big shot (and probably keeps a little of the money for administrative purposes) and doles out your money to upstart businesses where the refugee has little credit and few personal assets.

Here is the description by Director of ORR Eskinder Negash (of the revolving door) in the Director’s message to Congress in the finally released ORR annual report to Congress for 2008 (they still are behind and owe Congress reports for 2009 and 2010):

ORR’s Microenterprise Program helped recently arrived refugees who possessed few personal assets and who lacked credit history to start, expand, or sustain a small business. ORR funded 17 grantees nationwide for a total of $3,680,000 to help refugees start various businesses, including ethnic restaurants, child care, taxicab and limo services, and cleaning companies. In FY 2008, more than 3,400 refugees were served in the Microenterprise Program, which assisted 681 businesses. Of those, 261 were new business starts, 320 were expansions of existing businesses, and 100 represented strengthening or stabilization of existing businesses. The above businesses created 605 jobs that were taken by other low income refugees.

I was going to tell you more, but I am out of time today.  Go to pages 38 and 39 in the Annual Report and see how much money was given out and to which groups for Microenterprise loans.

ORR Annual Report to Congress hot off the presses!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

NOT!  It is three years late!

I was hoping to have a quick look at the long-awaited 2008 Annual Report to Congress from the Office of Refugee Resettlement before posting this, but unfortunately have run out of time today to skim through it.

Here it is! (thanks to a reader).  All of you who have asked me lately how much money is expended supporting refugees and asylees and where the refugees were resettled, this is the latest report and I encourage you to study it.

Next, to get the full picture of how the refugee program has fared in the great recession, we will have to start nagging for the 2009 and 2010 reports that are also late.

Earned Income Tax Credit—the redistribution of wealth on steroids

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars!

Most people don’t realize that there are people who are not making enough money to owe taxes but are filing tax returns and getting (LOL!) money back —-I’m laughing because they aren’t getting money back that they put in, just getting other peoples’ tax money back.

Edwin Rubenstein has a good report (published at the Social Contract) on this program that is a more significant drain on our federal budget than some other forms of ‘welfare.’  (But, not as fast-growing as the fraud-ridden food stamp program!)   Read all about it here, hat tip Richard at Blue Ridge Forum.

On tax day 2009 we released a study of the Earned Income Tax Credit. At the time we noted that the credit had quietly become the largest cash transfer program for low-income families in the United States – dwarfing better known programs such as TANF (cash welfare.) Since then Federal spending has expanded far more rapidly than anyone had anticipated while tax revenues have shrunk. In FY2008 the U.S. budget deficit was $0.5 trillion; this year (FY2011) it is projected to be $1.6 trillion.

Every spending program, every revenue source is on the table – or so we are told. Reductions in Medicare, Medicaid, and other “untouchable” social programs have been proposed. Yet the EITC is under the radar in this debate. Neither party has shown any interest in cutting the tax credit. The credit is not subject to the Congressional budget authorization process.

One reason for its relative anonymity: EITC is part of the income tax code. (That’s why we chose April 15th to release our study.) The tax code is vast – it contains many different deductions, allowances and credits – of which the EITC is one of the most generous – and important.

[….]

The credit is expected to cost taxpayers a record $62.5 billion in 2011, up 4.5% from 2010. (This amount reflects both the reduction in tax payments plus the EITC refunds many recipients receive over and above their tax payments.) By comparison outlays of the notoriously hard to control Medicaid program are expected to rise by a mere 1.2%:  see the chart!

Readers:  we have a category entitled, where to find information, and this will be archived there.  You might want to visit that category from time to time.

Still no sign of those missing ORR Annual Reports to Congress

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Office of Refugee Resettlement is required by law to send an annual REPORT TO CONGRESS by January 31st of the year following the previous fiscal year (fiscal years end on September 30th).  So, by my calculation the Office of Refugee Resettlement (that is in the Department of Health and Human Services) is now three years behind!

Christopher Coen at Friends of Refugees is reporting (based on correspondence with a US Senator) that there is still no sign that that 2008 Annual Report is anywhere near being ready to release to the public!

Readers not familiar with these reports should visit the 2007 Report (here) and see how valuable these are to taxpayers wishing to see how their money is being spent (it’s filled with lists of grants and handy charts on such things as refugee employment and welfare usage).  

The ORR obviously doesn’t want Congress (or us) to know the truth about how much money is going into the program through contractors over the last three years!

And, apparently Congress doesn’t care if ORR is breaking the law!  What else can we conclude?


To new readers:  please visit our category ‘where to find information’ —-it includes links to reports, documents and other places to find useful information on immigration.