"If illegal aliens were deported lettuce would cost $10 a head!" This tired argument has been said over and over by people in this country who want illegal aliens to stay here for other reasons. It's pure fantasy and anyone who really digs deeper into the issue or actually thinks about it for a minute will realize it is true.
Think about that restaurant that you went to that you may suspect uses illegal labor, was your bill significantly less than it would have been if all the workers were legal?
How about them apples? How much do you really save if they come from a company that uses illegal labor versus legal labor? Did you save a dollar? Probably not.
How about a house you bought. Was your house significantly cheaper (though the construction quality may be!) than one built by someone using legal and licensed labor? Very doubtful.
The truth of the matter is that for every few pennies you saved on that pound of apples or on that meal or on the house you purchased, you lost much more in the taxes you are paying to support the illegal workforce in this country. For every penny you save you're probably paying 2 or 3 for illegal alien health care, education for their children, roadwork and planning due to congestion, law enforcement for crime, social services such as welfare and food stamps and the unmeasurable costs of people injured by uninsured illegal alien drivers and loss of life due to illegal alien gangs.
Is it really worth it? Here's an article in the Seattle Times that looks at the "savings" you as a consumer see.
The bag of Washington state apples you bought last weekend? Probably a few cents cheaper than it otherwise would have been, economists estimate ...
At a local QFC, Red Delicious apples go for about 99 cents a pound. Of that, only about 7 cents represents the cost of labor, said Tom Schotzko, a recently retired extension economist at Washington State University. The rest represents the grower's other expenses, warehousing and shipping fees, and the retailer's markup.
And that's for one of the most labor-intensive crops in the state...
If illegal workers disappeared from the apple harvest and wages for the remaining legal workers rose by 40 percent in response — and that entire wage increase were passed on to the consumer — that still would add less than 3 cents to the retail price of a pound of apples.
So let me ask you again, is it really worth it to consumers to continue to ignore the illegal immigration issue?
Does it make sense to continue the "$10 lettuce" false claims?
Is it really worth it to continue losing money every time you buy something because someone has a pro illegal alien agenda?
Tipped by: Dennis Dale (via Lonewacko)
