WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- U.S. businesses say recent cost estimates of the Senate immigration reform bill are inflated and that the House version would be more expensive.
In a critique distributed in advance of a congressional field hearing Thursday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that the recent estimate by the Congressional Budget Office of the costs of the Senate's immigration reform package -- which includes a new guest worker program and a path to legalization for undocumented workers here already -- overstates the cost.
The non-partisan CBO put the total net cost to taxpayers of the package -- including an immigration-status verification scheme for employers, enhanced law enforcement and border security measures, the construction of a wall along parts of the southern border, and various tax and spending implications -- at $79 billion over 10 years.
But Angelo Amador, the chamber's director of immigration policy, told United Press International that the costs didn't include any assessment of the macro-economic benefits of the growth in the legal workforce the reforms would cause. A separate budget office report earlier this year estimated that these changes would generate between $80 billion and $160 billion over the 10 years.
Moreover, even the immediate tax and spending implications in this week's report were wrong, said Amador, because they interpreted an exemption for employers from tax liability as extending into the future, whereas the chamber, which lobbied for the provision, only intended it to cover past liability.
If only past liability was covered by the exemption, the report says, the net budgetary impact of the Senate bill excluding macro-economic effects would be a surplus of $44 billion over 10 years.
Amador also pointed out that there was no similarly comprehensive estimate of the costs of the House package, which -- because it contains no guest worker program -- would not have countervailing macro-economic benefits.
