An anonymous reader writes: On Slashdot, there are a lot of people who dislike the H1-B program, because immigrants are allowed into the country who are willing to do the same work for less money. Employers claim the cap must be raised because there are not enough qualified people in the US to do the work, techies point to the unemployed techies and cry "bullshit"! Similarly, there is a big debate nationwide over what to do about illegal aliens. Some say they do jobs that few US citizens are willing to do, others claim they are just willing to do those jobs for less money than a US citizen would demand. Many solutions are proposed. Build a wall? Sanction employers for hiring them? Create a guest worker program to essentially "decriminalize" being in the country illegally?
A growing number claim the best solution would be to add some additional payroll taxes to the 7.65% paid by the employer on everyone's wages. If there was an additional say 20% added on top of that, H1-Bs could still come, but they would have to be willing to work for what amounts to 20% less than US citizens, due to that additional tax. But if employers REALLY cannot find qualified US citizens to do the work, they should be willing to accept this plan. Similarly, if currently illegal aliens are willing to pay several thousand dollars to be smuggled across the border, risking their very lives while doing so, to be hunted, hounded and hated, surely a guest worker program would be great for them, even if they had to accept a salary that would be 20% lower than what a US citizen received for it to be equal from the employer's eyes in terms of how much they actually had to pay.
Best of all, all this additional tax revenue would help reduce the deficit, and in the fine tradition of states like Florida that screw over tourists to reduce the tax burden on Florida's residents, we could collect taxes from non citizens, something even the most tax hating conservative would have to admit is better than raising the taxes on citizens. It would level the playing field between people who live in the US full time and need to support families that live here, with our higher cost of living and those who want to come here to work and save money to take/send home to countries with a lower cost of living where it is worth much more.
