July 2, 2013 2:50PM # Immigration Illusions Part Two: Rector and Richwine Rediscover Budget Deficits By [Alan Reynolds](https://www.cato.org/people/alan-reynolds) --- SHARE A recent paper by [Robert Rector](http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/05/29/2070941/robert-rector-33-million-argument/) and [Jason Richwine ](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/05/10/jason-richwine-resigns-from-heritage-foundation/) (“The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer*”)* went to a lot of unnecessary trouble to estimate that governments at all levels spent [$54.5 billion](http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/05/the-fiscal-cost-of-unlawful-immigrants-and-amnesty-to-the-us-taxpayer) more on services and [benefits](https://www.cato.org/publications/economic-development-bulletin/poor-immigrants-use-public-benefits-lower-rate-poor) to households *headed by* unlawful immigrants (which includes [children and spouses](https://www.cato.org/blog/heritage-immigration-study-fatally-flawed) who are citizens) than was collected in taxes from them in 2010. It is hardly shocking to learn that federal, state, and local governments spent more on unlawful immigrants than they received in taxes, since governments spent more on *nearly everyone* than they received in taxes. That is what happens when governments run big budget deficits. Spending by federal state and local governments exceeded revenues by [$1,342.6 billion](http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/GovView.asp) in 2010—a conspicuously grander figure than the mere $54.5 billion Rector and Richwine attribute to unlawful immigration. For researchers to discover that unlawful immigrants, like most of us, did not pay enough taxes in 2010 to cover government spending was remarkably unenlightening. The paper is even less informative about the future, because (1) it ignores the fact that the Senate bill’s reduced restrictions on *legal* immigration would reduce the incentive for future *illegal* immigration, and (2) it ignores [economic effects](http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44346) of a larger labor force in raising long-run [economic growth](http://americanactionforum.org/sites/default/files/Immigration%20and%20the%20Economy%20and%20Budget.pdf). ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy), [Trade Policy](https://www.cato.org/trade-policy), [Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies](https://www.cato.org/herbert-stiefel-center-trade-policy-studies), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).