It’s not hard to understand why the Swamp supports importing vast numbers of migrants into the US. Washington, DC, is a company town. Its industry runs on the constant flow of taxpayer revenue into federal coffers. The various politicians, contractors, think tanks, and career bureaucrats inhabiting the DC ecosphere see an endless expansion of the taxpayer base as vital to preserving the bounteous stream. Immigration, whether legal or illegal, is considered an unalloyed boon to that growth.
In a recent speech, independent commentator Tucker Carlson drove the matter home via a slightly different context. Carlson discussed how the Democratic Party has transformed into the party of the rich, but his words equally apply to the federal leviathan as a whole.
“The point is that [an] entire, not just political party, but class of people has created an entire economy and credentialing system to reward themselves with money and power that is not deserved,” Carlson stated.
Add It Up
Three leading Washington think tanks have come together to issue a new report offering a familiar establishment argument, claiming massive immigration fuels “economic growth.” The Brookings Institution published the paper, dated Oct. 16, written “in partnership” with the American Enterprise Institute and the Niskanen Center.
The authors make clear the stakes of the 2024 presidential election and indicate just how many foreigners they hope to see pour into the US over the next four years. “We expect net immigration to be significantly higher under a [Kamala] Harris administration than a second [Donald] Trump administration,” the report reads.
“Net migration in the Harris, high scenario is 3.7 million in 2025 and cumulates to 12.3 million from 2025–2028,” the paper stated, highlighted by Breitbart’s Neil Munro. “[T]he Trump, low scenario yields net negative migration. Net migration is around -740,000 in 2025 and -230,000 in 2026. … Cumulative net migration over the four years is around 410,000.”
The authors went on to emphasize the alleged catastrophic economic effects of cutting off the migrant pipeline into America. They specifically noted the federal incentive to prevent that from happening.
DC ‘Reaps Substantial Positive Fiscal Gains’ From Migrants
“The consequences for the aggregate economy are clear, but the fiscal effects of immigration are also worth noting. Immigration improves the federal budget because immigrants pay more in federal income and payroll taxes than they use in federal benefits,” the paper asserts.
It rather tepidly acknowledges how that can be.
“However, states and localities often face fiscal challenges in the short run when absorbing new arrivals,” the authors placidly write.
In other words, local communities beyond the Beltway would bear the full brunt of the crisis while the federal government enjoyed financial gain.
Co-author Wendy Edelberg, Brookings’ economist, admits the disparity even as she downplays the long-term impact on American towns. She has called for federal aid to regions that take in numerous low-skilled migrants.
“Specifically, between 2018 and 2023, 42 states in the contiguous US had increases in the share of their adult populations comprised of non-college immigrants who had arrived within two years,” a June Brookings paper co-authored by Edelberg states. “In turn, there is increasing pressure on the federal government, which reaps substantial positive fiscal gains from immigration over the long run, to distribute resources to a growing number of communities who face disproportionate near-term budget strains.”
The disconnect of a distant “expert” is evident. Textbook terms such as “distribute resources” and “near-term strains” reveal the limited extent of the Swamp’s feeling for the dire social, cultural, and economic plight of residents in towns overrun by migrants.
A July 2023 interview with Edelberg on the Brookings website further bolsters Carlson’s claims of well-off insiders crafting an economy that serves their interests. Waves of uneducated migrants are bad for lower-class Americans, Edelberg says, but highly useful for the credentialed class.
“So, we have a lot of evidence that when an immigrant comes in who has less education, we see the relative wages of those with more education actually go up because those are complementary sets of skills,” Edelberg declared. “But conversely, when immigrants with lower education come into the United States, we see wages of similarly situated people in the US who have less education, who, let’s say, only have a high school degree, we see their wages fall, or at least their relative wages fall because there are more substitutes.”
Despite that fact, Edelberg wants more migrants. Much more.
“Decades of research have shown the value in significantly expanding immigration. To maximize the economic benefits, Congress will need to create more pathways for legal immigration, reimagine the enforcement system, and support communities that welcome large numbers of immigrants,” she wrote in an April opinion piece she co-authored for Time magazine.
America cannot survive without massive immigration, Wendy Edelberg maintains. One wonders – how would the country do without DC’s think-tank economists?
“How long could you and your family make it without a DEI consultant on site?” Tucker Carlson asked his audience. “I'm serious. Could you get to Halloween? Or will one of your little children stare up at you with doe eyes and say, ‘Mommy, I need a DEI consultant. I need it now. Honestly, I need a school counselor or some heavy-set nurses who can convince me to go trans. I need that.’”
“I don't like to swear, but the phrase bulls**t jobs is a real thing. Those are all bulls**t jobs, every single one of them,” he added.
“And yet they're lecturing people who, I don't know, plumb your house, keep you from getting murdered, put out the fires when they start, rescue you after a car crash on the highway, build the building you live in, pave the road you drive on, grow the food you eat.”
This is the heart of the vast divide separating the American people from the federal government today.
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