Immigration bill sticker shock - A government study puts the cost of the Senate's version of reform at $127 billion over 10 years

By Gail Russell Chaddock, Christian Science Monitor

August 24, 2006

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0825/p01s02-uspo.html

The price tag for comprehensive immigration reform [sic] was not a key issue when the Senate passed its bill last May. But it is now.

One reason: It took the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) - the gold standard for determining what a bill will cost - until last week to estimate that federal spending for this vast and complex bill would hit $127 billion over the next 10 years.

At the same time, federal revenues would drop by about $79 billion, according to the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation. If lawmakers fix a tax glitch, that loss would be cut in half, they add.

In field hearings across the nation this month, House GOP leaders are zeroing in on the costs of the Senate bill. It's a bid to define the issue heading into fall elections and muster support for the House bill, which focuses on border security. They say that the more people know about the Senate version, including a path to citizenship for some 11 [to 20] million people now in the country illegally, the less they will be inclined to support it.

"We are now just beginning to see a glimpse of the staggering burden on American taxpayers the Reid-Kennedy immigration legislation contains," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, who convened a field hearing at the State House in Concord, N.H., Thursday on the costs of the Senate bill....

On the issue of border security - a feature in both bills - there is little disagreement. The CBO estimates that the cost of hardening US borders in the Senate bill is $78.3 billion over 10 years, or about 62 percent of the bill's total cost....

The fireworks involve new entitlement spending in the Senate version. The CBO sets the price tag for services for some 16 million new citizens and guest workers at $48.4 billion through fiscal year 2016. That includes $24.5 billion for earned income and child tax credits, $11.7 billion for Medicaid, $5.2 billion for Social Security, $3.7 billion for Medicare, and $2.4 billion for food stamps....

"The amnesty alone will be the largest expansion of the welfare system in the last 25 years," says Robert Rector, a senior analyst at the Heritage Foundation, and a witness at a House Judiciary Committee field hearing in San Diego Aug. 2. "Welfare costs will begin to hit their peak around 2021, because there are delays in citizenship. The very narrow time horizon [the CBO is] using is misleading," he adds. "If even a small fraction of those who come into the country stay and get on Medicaid, you're looking at costs of $20 billion or $30 billion per year."...

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