Imaginary Conversations and Random Thoughts

I just saw a Kerry blurb on illegal immigrants. He runs through a list of reasons why they’re great, including the fact that they pay taxes. I have a few questions about this:

1. When you hear about taxes (tax cuts, tax increases, taxes are too high, etc.), does anything but income tax pop into your mind? Is anyone really saying, “Man, the tax on my dinner at this restaurant is outrageous!!” (Actually, people should love restaurant tax. It makes things so much easier. Double it, and you have your tip!)

2. So if Kerry says taxes, he means income taxes. Or he doesn’t, but has deliberately chosen words to make us think he does. How does an illegal alien pay income taxes? I’m not being facetious. Please tell me. Seems like at the top of every form, there are those nine little boxes, just waiting for my Social Security number. If you’re an illegal alien without an SSN, what do you put there? So it can’t be income taxes.

3. Perhaps he means those other taxes like property taxes. Except, can you get a mortgage without an SSN? Can you even get a bank account?

4. I always thought you had to be a citizen to get an SSN. Am I wrong? I certainly hope not. I would be very concerned to learn that this is not the case.

5. So what else is there besides sales tax? Oh, and gas tax? Gas tax is expensive, I think most people would agree with that. But you can drive less, and many people don’t have cars at all. And sales tax? How many products that you absolutely have to have and literally cannot live without have sales tax? I’m not talking about designer products that you want. I’m talking about what you need to live. You don’t have to pay sales tax. The vast majority of non-food products you can buy in any store and pay sales tax on, you can buy tax free at somebody’s garage sale. So we’ve eliminated sales tax, and gas tax in most cases. Utilities taxes? Phone taxes maybe? Those can’t add up to much. You make a willing choice to pay taxes when you decide to purchase taxed goods and services. It seems plain to me. I’ve been speaking in general terms. There must be certain exceptions. Aside from those, am I wrong in my general description of this situation?

There may be many good qualities in illegal aliens, but I don’t think paying taxes is one of them.