Quote Originally Posted by oladub View Post
Shelby, Regarding "contributions", 40% of undocumented adults ages 18-24 do not complete high school compared with a national average dropout rate of 15.9% including illegals. As a group, dropouts cost taxpayers $1.8B/year. I'm puzzled about employment prospects for high school dropouts during future recessions and as robotization, other computerization, and self driving vehicles displace millions of workers. Relying on citizens and foreigners who come here legally, respecting our laws, seems a better bet.
Shelby will correct me if I'm wrong.............

But I don't believe her argument was that illegal immigrants writ large are net contributors to the U.S. [[that's a separate discussion).

Rather her argument was that if you issue an estimate of costs for a given group, that it should read as NET costs in order to provide the most useful and accurate data.

Ergo if you count the cost of someone's education; you must count the revenue from the taxes they pay.

Pick a side, EITHER side, count both, or count neither.

In counting both, you may well show a net cost; but it would obviously be less than when you don't adjust for any taxation revenue.