Bad Policy - Yet Again

WASHINGTON - The government's plan to crack down on illegal workers could cost employers more than $1 billion a year and legal workers billions in lost wages, a study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says.

Those costs are enough to trigger a federal law that would require the Homeland Security Department to analyze more thoroughly the effect of its proposal, said Richard Belzer, a consultant hired by the chamber to do the study. It was made available to The Associated Press on Thursday.

The department's proposed "no match" rule would require employers to fire workers who can't resolve mismatches between their name and Social Security number. The chamber opposes the proposal.

Belzer's study will be among public comments submitted to the Homeland Security Department on the proposal. The department could adopt the proposal after reviewing the comments. The deadline for comments is Friday.

Belzer, a former economist with the Office of Management and Budget, looked at overall costs and multiplied the average costs by the number of employers in each category. He also used the Homeland Security's estimates that 2 percent of legal workers a year would lose their jobs because they can't resolve the Social Security mismatch.

That adds up to between 37,000 to 137,000 unable to get work. Belzer estimated their lost wages would be from $8 billion to $37 billion.

Is there even one "conservative" policy position that does NOT wreak havock on everything it touches?

Out of their fucking minds insane.