And if Congress and the president enact reforms that lead to increased low-skill immigration, we can expect the cost to climb still further. Only 9 percent of native-born adults lack a high-school degree, but among legal immigrants the number is 25 percent. With illegal immigrants, it's roughly 50 percent, according to Rector. Recent immigration "reform" proposals would add millions of low-skill immigrants to our society, at enormous cost to the U.S. taxpayer.
"In order to make the average low-skill household fiscally neutral -- to make taxes paid equal immediate benefits received and the appropriate share of interest on government debt -- it would be necessary to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, all 60 means-tested aid programs and cut the cost of public edu¬cation in half," Rector says. "It seems certain that, on average, low-skill households will generate deep fiscal deficits for the fore¬seeable future."
The point of all this is not to argue that low-skill households enjoy a life of ease, or that they deserve no public help at all. But Rector's analysis does graft some much-needed perspective on the hoary charges that the rich shaft the poor at every opportunity -- that we, as a society, don't do enough to alleviate the suffering of those mired in poverty.
In fact, we do quite a bit -- something our presidential aspirants should keep in mind. "Before government undertakes to transfer even more economic resources to these households," Rector says, "it should have a very clear account of the magnitude of the transfers that already occur." Would-be Robin Hoods, take note.