Gov. Kemp and House Lawmakers Ignoring Proven $100 Million Annual Revenue Source

Photo: Ga.Gov

System working in Oklahoma since 2010 involves no sports betting – misinformation from the liberal AJC has hindered consideration in the past

D.A. King

Georgia voters should be asking why Governor Kemp and all concerned under the Gold Dome are ignoring a proven successful process to create a new revenue stream estimated to add about $100 million to Georgia coffers annually.

It’s a refundable fee on money wired out of the state that has been working in Oklahoma for more than a decade and will not cost state tax-filers a penny.

Many of us would be keen on hearing about this from the assorted state lawmakers pushing to start the casino gambling stone down the hill by legalizing sports betting as source of revenue. With the current ongoing pandemic budget woes, $100 million in new, yearly revenue seems like real money.

Well-written legislation was introduced in previous years that would mimic a working system in Oklahoma that has added to that state’s budget since 2010. The Gold Dome legislation is still readily available. This idea may require citizen pressure to receive the focus it warrants because the “business first” special interest lobby in Atlanta has worked hard to keep the proven system out of public sight or official consideration. The measure has never seen a hearing.

Oklahoma has shown us a way to tap into the enormous amount of money that is sent out of Georgia every year that now goes nowhere near the Georgia economy or state coffers – and the best news is that the majority of that money comes from drug dealers and illegal aliens!

What is it? A small, 100% refundable fee on funds wired out of Georgia that tax-filers easily recoup on their state tax returns. In simple terms, it goes like this: Let’s say you wire $1000.00 to Aunt Tilly in New York to help with her rent – or you send part of your under-the-table cash wages from your landscaping job to family in Oaxaca. When the payment is sent out, the wire service would add on a small extra fee (around 2%) – which you would get back when you file your tax return or a simple, short form explaining that you are not required to file a return.

The wire transfer agency would be compensated by the state for the collection effort.

The fee would be added to all the money the criminal black market – including illegal drug dealers and “undocumented workers” wire home literally every day.

The government of Mexico alone received about $25 billion American dollars in 2019, mostly from its citizens living here in the good old USA. That is more money than Mexico made on oil revenues. “Against initial estimates and despite the COVID-19 crisis, we estimate that remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean will reach US$ 70.4 billion (+6.0%) and in Mexico to US$ 39.5 billion (+8.4%) in 2020” according to economists who study the topic.

According to the Oklahoma Tax Commission for the year 2019, Oklahoma realized more than $19 million from the refundable wire transfer fee system, largely provided by black market labor. According to the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, Georgia has more illegal aliens than Arizona – and many more than Oklahoma. We don’t have figures on how many American dollars are sent out of Georgia by drug dealers, but Atlanta is a known terminus for that insidious organized crime.

The income for the state in this genius plan comes from the fact that the huge majority of criminals in the underground economy do not file a tax return.

Everyone who files a state tax return or special short form can get the fee back. Fake news from the Atlanta Journal Constitution on a previous attempt to see passage of this available revenue stream bill requires me to repeat: The fully refundable wire transfer withholding would apply to everyone who wires money out of Georgia, regardless of its final destination.

The AJC falsely reported that the fully refundable wire transfer fee concept is a “tax” and apply only to foreigners sending money to their home countries. And they didn’t seem to like the idea that it would affect illegal aliens.

We hope the Governor Kemp and concerned, responsible legislators will take a hard look at the proven $100 million a year revenue program for themselves – maybe even give it a hearing.

Georgia voters should do more than merely hope. Governor Kemp’s office is 404-656-1776.

Center for Immigration Studies

DREAMers’ are just the bait; “citizenship for all 11 million, or however many” illegal aliens there are here is the hoo

By Andrew R. Arthur on November 17, 2022

On November 16, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) held a press conference in front of the Capitol in which he called for amnesty for “DREAMers”, aliens brought illegally to the United States as children. As he did so, however, he pulled back the curtain on his end game – to “get a path to citizenship for all 11 million, or however many undocumented, there are here”. The DREAMers are the bait, while a full and total amnesty is the hook.

DREAMers, In Brief. Amnesty legislation for aliens who arrived in their youth has a long, but not particularly successful pedigree. Here’s a brief recap.

In August 2001, then-Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) introduced a bipartisan “DREAM Act”, which included 18 cosponsors. That bill would have granted amnesty to aliens unlawfully present for five years who entered under the age of 21, and who met certain work and educational requirements.

The timing of that bill could not have been worse, because less than six weeks later, the September 11 attacks showed how foolhardy such blanket amnesties were. Nonetheless, similar “DREAM Acts” were subsequently introduced in later Congresses.

One bears special note. In March 2009, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) offered up the “DREAM Act of 2009” during the 111th Congress.

At that time, Barack Obama was president, Democrats held an overwhelming majority in the House, and from September 24, 2009 (when Democrat Paul Kirk was appointed to fill the seat of the late Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy) through February 4, 2010 (when Republican Scott Brown was elected to fill Kennedy’s seat), Democrats held a filibuster-proof majority of 60 seats in the Senate.

Obama’s fellow Democrats could have passed any bill they wanted – including and in particular the DREAM Act of 2009 – without any Republican votes at all. But that bill went nowhere. Cosponsor and then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) did not even bring it up for a vote in committee.

That said, two Republican senators – Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) – were cosponsors of the DREAM Act of 2009, so they probably would have blocked a filibuster even during the months Democrats only controlled a measly 59 seats in the upper chamber.

Obama blamed Republicans for the failure to pass a DREAM Act, but the fault really lies with him and congressional Democrats alone – DREAM Act legislation simply was not a priority for a party that held a hammerlock on the legislative process.

The popularity of legislation to “protect” the DACA population has been a key talking point for years (I was the punching boy for Democrats at a House hearing on the issue in March 2019), but let’s face it – if it really were all that popular, it would have been a shoo-in in the 111th Congress.

DACA. The failure of DREAM Act legislation led to a program called “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” or DACA. It grants quasi-legal status to aliens who entered the United States while under the age of 16 before June 15, 2007, who are currently under the age of 41, who meet certain educational standards, and have not been convicted of certain crimes.

DACA was not created by Congress, or even by executive order or executive action (for what that is worth). It’s the product of a memo issued by then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano on June 15, 2012. In my considered legal opinion, Napolitano lacked the authority to create DACA (the Fifth Circuit ruled in October that the program is unlawful, but the Supreme Court has yet to weigh in), but in any event, it sets a bad precedent.

Want proof? Here’s what the editorial board of the Washington Post had to say when President Obama was considering expanding DACA to include parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents in 2014:

The president should think twice. Some of the same Democrats and pro-immigrant advocates urging him to protect millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation would be outraged if a Republican president took a similarly selective approach to enforcing the laws — say, those that guarantee voting rights or prohibit employment discrimination.

Obama ignored the Post editorial board and created something called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA). DAPA proved to be a bridge too far for Texas and several other states, who successfully sued to block its implementation.

Despite all of this, DACA continues, and the Biden administration recently issued a new rule, effective October 31, “to preserve and fortify” the decade-old program.

A Sympathetic Population. The DACA population is admittedly sympathetic. The vast majority of the approximately 650,000 current DACA beneficiaries were removable a decade ago, but in the intervening years they have been living in a quasi-legal status thanks to some questionable administrative actions.

Even President Trump, in his 2018 State of the Union address, offered up a plan to legalize not just DACA recipients but also a total of 1.8 million “DACA-eligible” aliens – more or less the same individuals covered by the DREAM Act…. please read the rest here at the CIS website.