A California Republican

There are many people who believe that illegal immigrants are the problem with California’s budget.

Granted, there is a lot of spending on illegal immigrants. The schools they attend are funded with state money. They go to state universities and pay in-state tuition (if they graduated from a CA high school), and the state funds the universities. They use health care, they are in prisons. They use the law enforcement resources, water and energy, and the state spends millions on their care in emergency rooms and clinics.

The state does spend a lot of money on illegal immigrants. But it is no where near the amount people think. The money spent on illegal immigration isn’t the $21+ billion that is needed to fix the budget. No one knows how much it is. This is because schools don’t ask about immigration status. Health care is provided regardless of immigration status. It is insane that these services are provided regardless of immigration status. No one knows how much stopping these services would save, because there is no current way to track them.

Illegal immigrants can come to California and get kidney transplants, they can get multiple kidney transplants. Illegla immigrants take away spots in colleges that residents could use. Illegal immigrants take spots in elementary and high schools that could otherwise be used to make smaller classes for legal residents and citizens.

Some say to provide amnesty for illegal immigrants? Why? They broke the law, and knew they broke the law when they did it. There is no issue of these people not knowing they were breaking the law.

One of the arguments in support of illegal immigration is that the illegals perform jobs that citizens wouldn’t do, and at a lower wage. This argument says that it is okay to exploit illegal immigrants. However, wouldn’t the man that just lost his construction job be willing to provide for his family by taking a dishwasher job? Shouldn’t the companies be forced to pay minimum wage to their employees and provide them with the protection of the law?

The 14 million people that are un-employed would take the jobs that the illegals are holding. Wouldn’t it be better for people to come off social services and be placed in these jobs? Why should illegals get the benefits of having a job when there are legal residents who do not have one?

Illegal immigrants don’t provide a benefit to California, or anywhere. They provide a drain. They are law-breaking people who think they can simply take what they want. They don’t respect the laws of this state, or this country. If they did, they wouldn’t be here illegally. What’s more, they don’t want to be American. They want to hold onto their culture, language, nationality and flag; they just want to live here. So why grant them legal status simply because they broke the law and managed to avoid deportation? It is a ridiculous sentiment.

However, they aren’t the solution to the budget problem. Banning illegals from services won’t solve the whole budget problem, but it would solve a portion of it.

Are taxes in California too high?

Certainly someone who is struggling to make ends meet, and now has to pay extra sales tax would say yes. As would most people in California who pay their taxes (for those of you who don’t pay taxes - maybe you should).

California might not appear to have a huge tax burden. But the issue is the taxes as a percentage of your income, and how far the income can stretch after taxes. With the new vehicle license tax increase, the new sales tax, and the ever skyrocketing personal income tax, California is becoming a place that few can afford to live.

What do Californians get in return for their taxes? Failing schools, bad roads, shoddy fire and police services, a huge prison population, and social services that fail to get people into jobs. This is the true measure of when taxes are too high - it is when you are paying them and getting a horrid return on them.

There is nothing good about California schools (most of them). Most California schools have fialing students. The students care more about athletics than learning, classes are too big, the high school dropout rate is too high, and learning is too structured. Some charter schools are making a difference, and doing better, but those schools are far fewer than the public schools, which is where the bulk of the money goes. Anyone who pays attention to California schools knows that we have funded them at a high level, and no matter how much money is poured in, the schools are still failing. This is not a good return on our tax money.

We pay a gas tax everytime we fill up our car or truck with gas. Despite this high, and persistent, tax Californians are still driving on badly paved roads, and roads with bad markings and which need construction work done on them. The tax we pay at the pump should be going to fix these things. Instead, who knows where it is truely going. It certainly isn’t going to keep the road up, as most California drivers can tell you. This is one of the worst states to have a sensative suspension in, because our roads are so bad it will get dinged up fairly quickly.

Our social services are failing. Rather than being a safety net, they have become a way of life. The social services don’t get people into jobs. Instead, they continue to provide income and services for those who will not provide for themselves. There are some people who need social services for a while, and then come off of them, but the majority of people on social services are there for a lifestyle, not for a brief period of time and certainly they are not using it as the safety net it was designed to be. At some point, people need to recognize that flipping burgers is a job. It brings in money. It may not be your dream job, but it provides income while you get where you want to be. The state is not, should not be, the provider of your income - you should be.

Our prison population is huge, and simply gets larger every day. Prisons aren’t doing any rehabilitation - they are spending the money paying the guards and building clinics that the federal Reciever wants to build. They are expending large sums of money complying with court orders that give inmates better health care than they would get on medi-cal or medicare. That is ridiculous.

Mainly, Californians aren’t getting anything for their taxes. The average person doesn’t see a return on their investment. If California was a business, the investors would pull out, the CEO would be fired, and the company would go through an overhaul, or go out of business. Taxes are too high for the returns we are getting. The Leiglsature needs to realize this and fix the problem before they ask for any more of our money.