CBO Estimates Huge Net Fiscal Drain in First 20 years After Passage

As the Senate debates the Build Back Better Act (H.R. 5376), a little-noticed part of the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) cost estimates show the bill’s amnesty provisions create an enormous net fiscal burden (taxes paid minus costs) that starts out large and grows even larger over time — $124 billion in the first decade after passage and $359 billion in the second. The total net fiscal cost of the bill’s amnesty provisions over 20 years is $483 billion. The CBO also states that the bill would increase the deficit “by larger amounts in the subsequent decade.” A brief Center for Immigration Studies analysis of the CBO estimates can be found here.

“The CBO’s estimates show that legalizing illegal immigrants creates a huge burden for taxpayers that only grows larger over time,” said Dr. Steven Camarota, the Center’s Director of Research and author of the analysis. “This is not because they all came to this country to obtain welfare. Rather, it reflects their low average levels of education, and resulting low incomes and tax contributions. Legalization does not change these basic facts, but it does allow them to access more and more programs over time.”

Among the CBO’s finding:

* Section 60001 of H.R. 5376 (parolee amnesty) would create nearly $132 billion in new expenditures 2022-2031, while generating just $7.5 billion in new revenue, for a net fiscal drain of about $124 billion in the first 10 years.

* The amnesty would create an additional $358 billion in new expenditures between 2032 and 2041, and it would also reduce revenue by more than $1 billion, creating a net drain of $359 billion in the second 10 years.

* The total net fiscal drain from the amnesty provisions for the entire 20-year period (2022 to 2041) would be about $483 billion.

* The primary reason a parole amnesty would result in large new expenditures according to the CBO is that amnesty recipients would be able to receive Affordable Care Act subsidies, Medicaid, the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Social Security, and Medicare to a much greater extent than they would without legal status.

Written by Steven A. Camarota for the Center for Immigration Studies ~ December 6, 2021

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