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On Tuesday, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the immigration reform bill currently making its way through the US Senate will actually decrease the deficit by $197 billion between 2014-2023. The report’s findings are at odds with claims by the bills opponents that increased immigration would be fiscally harmful to the US. In fact, House Speaker John Boehner said today that if the CBO is right, those revenues could be a “real boon” for the US.
According to the CBO, the bill would generate $459 billion in additional revenue over the next decade. Allowing unauthorized immigrants to seek legal status would increase tax compliance, and also increase the wages and thus the taxes of those same immigrants. In addition, the CBO found that the increase in the immigrant population and the number of individuals working in the US as a result of the bill would also substantially increase revenue.
Conservative critics of the immigration bill have tried to argue that the bill will drain public resources as immigrants obtain government benefits. The reality, according to the CBO, is that the required increase in government outlays (primarily in the form of refundable tax credits, Medicaid, and health insurances subsidies) would amount to only $262 billion over the next decade, meaning that immigrants as a group would end up paying more than they receive. This would be even more true over the bill’s second decade (from 2024-2033), during which the CBO estimates the federal deficit would be decreased by an additional $700 billion.
The bill’s positive fiscal impact could undermine efforts by lawmakers like Senators Marco Rubio, Orrin Hatch, and Jeff Sessions to add amendments to the bill that would create extra obstacles for immigrants in terms of taxes and government benefits.