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this raises more questions than it answers for me. the migration tax in particular doesn't make a lot of sense to me. immigrants are either going to a) consume

this raises more questions than it answers for me. the migration tax in particular doesn't make a lot of sense to me. immigrants are either going to a) consume more services than they pay for in "normal" taxes, or b) make enough money that their taxes more than offset the services consumed. in case b), the people probably already have some valuable skills; you don't want to discourage these people from entering with a special tax. they would already be a net benefit to the balance sheet upon entry. in case a), they probably couldn't afford to pay a meaningful migration tax in the first place. do you just turn them away if they can't pay? restrictions on use of welfare for immigrants seems "fair" in a sense. at least, it doesn't leave them worse off than they were in the first place. I have to suspect this is a non-starter politically though. outside of a certain group of libertarians, most people who think it's morally wrong to prohibit free movement probably also consider it morally wrong to let people starve in the streets once they get there.

setgree 6y ago
These are fair points, all of which I think could be addressed by finding the optimal taxation point. The keyhole solution I favor would be something like: a US passport for 10 years, with no political rights or access to SS/Medicare/medicaid/etc., costs $10k, if you lived here for 10 years and didn't get arrested or anything then that transitions into full citizenship; maybe if you earned a certain amount of money/paid a certain amount of taxes in that time, you get your 10k back. Something like that, anyway. (FWIW my first choice would be a much, much lower barrier to entry -- this is what I came up with to try to address concerns like those raised in this thread.) But, again, if you accept that the default moral position is non-violence -- i.e. people have a prima facie right to move where they want, and if you threaten to hurt them for doing so (by putting them in jail, or making the only available border crossing extremely dangerous), then you are acting wrongly -- then I think it becomes natural to begin looking for solutions to whatever externalities you can think of. That's why I favor arguing the moral case for immigration before anything else: http://www.owl232.net/papers/immigration.htm http://www.owl232.net/papers/immigration.htm

setgree 6y ago

These are fair points, all of which I think could be addressed by finding the optimal taxation point. The keyhole solution I favor would be something like: a US passport for 10 years, with no political rights or access to SS/Medicare/medicaid/etc., costs $10k, if you lived here for 10 years and didn't get arrested or anything then that transitions into full citizenship; maybe if you earned a certain amount of money/paid a certain amount of taxes in that time, you get your 10k back. Something like that, anyway. (FWIW my first choice would be a much, much lower barrier to entry -- this is what I came up with to try to address concerns like those raised in this thread.) But, again, if you accept that the default moral position is non-violence -- i.e. people have a prima facie right to move where they want, and if you threaten to hurt them for doing so (by putting them in jail, or making the only available border crossing extremely dangerous), then you are acting wrongly -- then I think it becomes natural to begin looking for solutions to whatever externalities you can think of. That's why I favor arguing the moral case for immigration before anything else: http://www.owl232.net/papers/immigration.htm http://www.owl232.net/papers/immigration.htm