Tuesday (12/12/2017) Chain immigration and visa lottery produced both NY terrorists

Yesterday’s New York City Port Authority / subway explosion has revived protests against chain immigration. The alleged pro-ISIS terrorist who set off the pipe bomb is a Bengladesh immigrant who came to the US through his relation to a US citizen. Chain immigration also results in the immigration of individuals who contribute nothing to the US economy. The Cato think tank reports that “Fewer than half of employment-based Green Cards are for workers. The United States’ immigration system favors family reunification, even in the so-called employment-based categories.” That is, immigration slots that were supposed to go to workers are instead going to non-working relatives.

NYC suffered an earlier more serious terrorist incident when “[Sayfullo] Saipov, the ISIS sympathizer who allegedly committed the Halloween terror attack in Lower Manhattan that left eight dead and 11 more injured, entered the U.S. from Uzbekistan in 2010 through the visa lottery program,” Fox News reports.

The RAISE Act promoted by Senator Cotton, Senator Perdue, and President Trump would eliminate both chain immigration and the visa lottery program, a good idea in our opinion. But the Act would also cut immigration by  half, which would reduce the nation’s productivity and economic growth — not a good idea. The bill is presently gathering dust in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Tax bills

The New York Times and Washington Post have been running almost non-stop coverage depicting the Republican tax bill as a giveaway to the rich at the expense of the middle class. This is the opposite of the truth, as a Cato scholar explains in criticizing a recent Post piece.

One sign that the proposed corporate tax cut to 20% is on the right track is the panicked response in Europe, especially Germany, which “is worried that the tax plan emerging from Congress will hurt Germany’s export machine,” according to Handelsblatt, a business publication. But Spiegel Online, another German publication, admits the US Republicans have their reasons: “The United States, the world’s most important economy, is transforming itself from a high-tax country to a low-tax paradise. Currently, most companies have to hand over 40 percent of their profits to the taxman, more than any other developed economy.”

Neither the House nor the Senate bill is without flaws. We wrote about the biggest flaw of all — the failure of either house to go with the Hall-Rabushka flat tax — in an earlier issue. Nevertheless, either the Senate or House tax bill is much better than the present state of tax affairs.

Useful improvements are meanwhile being suggested to guide the two houses as they attempt to come up with a single agreed-up bill. A majority of the criticisms are directed against the Senate version:

• The corporate tax reduction to 20% should take place beginning Jan. 1, 2018, not Jan. 1, 2019 as in the Senate version. Growth should be ignited this coming New Years Day, not a whole year later. (National Review)
• Drop the Senate bill’s first-in first-out provision for individual stock sales. It’s an unfair, “stealth” capital gains tax. (Stephen Moore in the Washington Times)
• Repeal the corporate state and local tax deduction (Moore, above);
• Cut the tax rate on the top bracket (Moore, above). Investors Business Daily explains why;
• Close the private foundation loophole of the super-wealthy, such as George Soros, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett (Moore, above);
• End the death tax, still in the Senate bill, but tax the estate’s capital gains rather than stepping up its basis (Moore, above). The Daily Caller explains why.

Click here to go to yesterday’s Founders Broadsheet (“Trump wins provoke enemies to trot out #MeToo ladies in hope of impeachment”)