Photo Credit: U.S. News
U.S. Congressman Dave Brat (R-Va.) debated with the Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf about putting the nation's people above illegal immigrants in a House committee meeting yesterday.
Brat - the only economist in the U.S. House of Representatives - began to question the CBO director's contention that granting amnesty granted to millions of illegal aliens would help our GDP. The Budget office claims their immigration plan would increase GDP by 5.4% and said that their immigration legislation considered both GNP and GDP in total, as well as per capita.
Rep. Brat asked if it would increase GDP if we invited seven billion people into our country, to which Mr. Elmendorf replied it would, but "not necessarily GDP per capita."
To which Congressman Brat responded:
"Good. I appreciate that. So if you did invite 7 billion folks here, most likely what would happen to GDP growth per capita? And especially after taxes and transfers."
The CBO director replies:
"Well, um, your experiment is a little hard for me to get my mind around. But certainly in the case of the Senate’s immigration legislation, we thought that we’d focus on GNP per capita—we thought that real GNP per capita would be lower at the end of the first decade, but higher at the end of the second decade because of the legislation. And that’s basically because we thought overtime the extra workers would stimulate more capital investment."
Rep. Brat explains that our capital stock has been flat for over thirty years leaving only human capital and innovation as options left that drive GDP. He points out that we used to be the world leader in math and science test scores, but now we are below the median for OECD countries.
The CBO director agreed that our human capital picture is worrisome and said they have looked into federal policies to spur innovation from tax policies to policies involved in the investment in human capital.
The representative from Virginia was trying to make the point that that our immigration policies cannot focus solely on GDP, but must benefit the personal welfare of American citizens and legal residents residing in our country.
Polling shows that, by a 3:1 ratio, voters wish to see existing legal immigration rates reduced.