We expect that those who cut the line will not be unfairly rewarded. So we’re going to offer the following deal: If you’ve been in America for more than five years; if you have children who are American citizens or legal residents; if you register, pass a criminal background check, and you’re willing to pay your fair share of taxes -- you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily without fear of deportation. You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. That’s what this deal is. (snip) (emphasis added)

Last night’s presidential address on decreeing that millions of illegal aliens can stay here in violation of the law contained a deep deceit, buried in words that were, on the surface, true. President Obama’s rhetoric left the impression that at last, illegal immigrants would “pay their fair share.” From the official transcript :

…millions of people who live here without paying their taxes or playing by the rules while politicians use the issue to scare people and whip up votes at election time.

The problem with this rhetoric is that very few illegal immigrants make enough money to actually pay taxes. Instead, their “fair share” will amount to a substantial gift from American citizen and legal immigrant taxpayers who have played by the rules.

Avik Roy writes:

…the vast majority of undocumented aliens don’t make enough in income to have a net income-tax liability. As I note in Forbes, a 2006 analysis by the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, concludes that “we can be virtually certain that illegal immigrants earned less than $24,000 per year, on average, probably much less.” That amounts to around $29,000 in 2014 dollars, well below the threshold where an American has a net income-tax liability.

Not only will they not pay income taxes, many are likely to get a check from the IRS, thanks to the Orwellian-named Earned Income Tax Credit, which send a gift from taxpayers to low income families.

Neil Munro explains in the Daily Caller:

…once illegal immigrants are enrolled in the tax system, they’re would be entitled to EITC payments The payments may be huge, and will rise each year. According to the Internal Revenue Service, two parents with three or more children would receive up to $6,143 in 2014 if they earn less than $46,997. A family with two kids, and an income of $20,000, would receive $14,590 in taxpayer funds this year alone. Parents who earn less than the threshold would get $3,305 if they have one child, and $5,460 if they have two children. The EITC program is already poorly monitored and may be subject to large amounts of fraud, according to critics. Another study says that 47 percent of legal and illegal immigrants and their children are classified as living in poverty or in near-poverty, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors reduced annual immigration.

In addition, the Social Security trust fund will lose billions. Roy explains:

…many illegals have fake Social Security numbers that their employers use to pay payroll taxes on their behalf. Century estimates that “about $6 billion in annual payroll taxes are allocated to non-existent Social Security accounts. . . .

Instead of subsidizing Social Security, these illegals will now be in a position to claim benefits, likely far in excess of what they will pay into the system.

Poor people cost taxpaying Americans a huge amount of money under our cockeyed system that punishes success and rewards poverty. Putting poor illegal immigrants (and not many of them are stockbrokers, lawyers and hedge fund managers) on the “tax rolls” amounts to putting them on the gravy train.