He points out-
...the odd contrast between the front page story and a back page story in the New York Times yesterday. The front page story was about Daschle (and Geithner) underpaying tens of thousands of dollars of taxes.
The back page story was about illegal immigrants who are dutifully paying taxes (according to the IRS, $50 billion dollars between 1996 to 2003). Indeed, these illegal immigrants are so anxious to pay their taxes that they have utilized fraudulent social security numbers to do so. The rub is that--to the dismay of the IRS--various law enforcement authorities are now seeking to use the tax records to find the illegal immigrants and bring them to justice.
The article suggests that these illegal immigrants have an ulterior motive for paying taxes, hoping this provides evidence that they will be good citizens. ...What is clear is that these people by and large do not make a lot of money, yet they willingly hand over a chunk of it to Uncle Sam, at risk of getting caught and losing everything.
The contrast seems bizarre: two public-minded elites substantially underpay their taxes (yet earn nominations to Cabinet posts), while illegal immigrants duly pay their taxes (and authorities use these payments to track them down).
While Mr. Tamanha's pairing of these items is artificial - the illustration that illegal aliens are paying taxes is a useful bit of information. It should really crop up more often in the immigration debates than it currently does.
