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Subject:
Immigrants ravage U.S. infrastructure Financial analyst: $1.6 trillion required to repair devastatio
The Lizard King
1/16/2009 3:30:01 AM
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| INVASION USA
WorldNetDaily
Immigrants ravage
U.S. infrastructure
Financial analyst: $1.6 trillion
required to repair devastation
ttp://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=86243
---------------------------------------------------------------------Posted: January 15, 2009
11:50 pm Eastern
By Chelsea Schilling
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WorldNetDaily
Edwin S. Rubenstein
The United States will need $1.6 trillion to repair damage to its infrastructure from a massive influx of immigrants, a new report reveals.
In his report titled, "The Twin Crises: Immigration and Infrastructure," prominent researcher Edwin S. Rubenstein examines 15 categories of infrastructure: airports, border security, bridges, dams and levees, electricity (the power grids), hazardous waste removal, hospitals, mass transit, parks and recreation facilities, ports and navigable waterways, public schools, railroads, roads and highways, solid waste and trash, and water and sewer systems.
Rubenstein, a financial analyst and former contributing editor of Forbes and economics editor of National Review, claims the nation is facing a crisis ? with immigration responsible for at least 80 percent of spending needed to expand the U.S. infrastructure before the middle of this century.
"If the infrastructure crisis could be fixed by spending money, there would be no crisis," Mr. Rubenstein explained in a statement. "Since 1987, capital spending on transportation infrastructure has increased by 2.1 percent per year above the inflation rate. At $233 billion (2004 dollars), infrastructure is already one of the largest categories of government spending. Our infrastructure is 'crumbling' because population growth has overwhelmed the ability of even these vast sums to expand capacity."
While immigration policy has been hotly debated for a number of years, Rubenstein writes that its impact on infrastructure is rarely discussed.
Public schools
Immigrants make up 21 percent of the school-age population in the U.S.
"In California, a whopping 47 percent of the school-age population consists of immigrants or the children of immigrants," the report states. "Some Los Angeles schools are so crowded that they have lengthened the time between classes to give students time to make their way through crowded halls. Los Angeles' school construction program is so massive that the Army Corps of Engineers was called in to manage it."
According to the U.S. Department of Education, 18 percent of all schools are considered overcrowded, and 37 percent use trailers and portable structures to accommodate growing student bodies. Public facilities are an average of 40 years old. Cities with high populations of illegal aliens are spending large amounts of their budgets on constructing new schools.
"Our anticipated gains in the number of foreign-born students alone will require us to build one elementary school a month to keep up," Miami-Dade, Fla., school Superintendent Roger Cuevas said.
Hospitals
Rubenstein cites a recent construction boom among the nation's hospitals. As many as 60 percent of America's hospitals are either under construction or have plans for new facilities.
"But we have a two-tier hospital system in the U.S. Hospitals in poor areas ? that serve primarily uninsured immigrants and Medicaid patients ? cannot afford their facilities," he writes. "The uncompensated costs are killing them. In California, 60 emergency departments (EDs) have closed to avoid the uncompensated costs of their largely illegal alien caseloads."
Illegal aliens use emergency rooms more than twice as often as U.S. citizens, and providing their uncompensated care has been the death of many emergency departments.
In 2006, more than 46 percent of illegals did not have medical insurance. Although illegal aliens are not supposed to be eligible for Medicaid, they receive Emergency Medicaid and their children are entitled to all benefits that legal immigrants receive.
Because hospitals are forced to care for Medicaid recipients, the government program never covers full costs of service. It underpaid hospitals by $11.3 billion in 2006, he wrote.
(Story continues below)
Water and electricity
Rubenstein referenced immigration trends revealing that aliens often choose to live in cities with strained water supplies ? especially near the border ? and their sheer numbers have made conservation efforts nearly impossible.
"Cities like San Antonio, El Paso, and Phoenix could run out of water in 10 to 20 years," he writes. San Diego's water company has resorted to a once-unthinkable option: recycling toilet water for drinking."
Due to immigration, demand for water exceeds the California State Water Project's capacity. Now Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed building a $6 billion reservoir. Approximately one-fifth of the state's electrici |
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