My brother, a former Marine, sent me a copy of a recent speech by Maj. Gen. Michael Lehnert, Commanding General, Marine Corps Installations West. (I can’t find the speech online, but I’m pretty sure this was it.)
The speech is too long for me to reproduce here, but I was especially struck by the following passage:
California hosts 40% of the combat power of the Marine Corps and 40% of the Marine veterans who leave the Corps do so out of Southern California bases. 96% have participated in the Montgomery GI Bill and are eligible for benefits but only a small number enter the California University system. Thats because California, unlike other states, did not provide any veterans preference or even reach out to veterans. These combat veterans score in the top 50% of their age group, are drug free and morally straight but are lost to California and return to other states that aggressively work to attract them.
I think one of the reasons this passage made such an impression is that I had recently seen a reference to this speech, by California state senator and Lt. Gov. candidate Tom McClintock, speaking in favor of a measure that would rescind California’s in-state tuition subsidy for illegal immigrants. McClintock noted:
On January 18th of this year [2005], the Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated the total cost of the AB 540 waivers at the UC, CSU and Community College system at $120 million annually. According to the L.A.O., the University of California estimates that up to 13 percent of their waivers are for foreign nationals illegally in the United States and the Community Colleges estimate that up to 90 percent of their waivers are affected. Assuming a 13 percent rate at CSU as well, that brings the total cost to California taxpayers of providing the in-state tuition subsidies to foreign nationals illegally in the state to as much as $75 million per year.
….
Consider two students from Mexico. One obeys every immigration law to come here legally. He files for the appropriate visas, he runs the gauntlet of the application process and he meets every requirement for legal status in the United States. The other has broken every immigration law for the last three years and is in the United States illegally.
The only difference is this: the LEGAL immigrant — who obeyed our laws — will be charged nearly $23,000 to attend the University of California ; the ILLEGAL immigrant will pay $6,000 with California taxpayers contributing the remaining $17,000.
Or consider an American citizen who just moved here LEGALLY from Arizona . She will also be charged the out-of state tuition. And while she is waiting tables to pay her tuition costs, her taxes will be used to subsidize the illegal immigrant.
And in a point similar to Gen. Lehnert’s, McClintock added:
I recently read an appeal letter from the Department of the Navy protesting the non-resident designation by the University of California of a student named Lou-Anthony Palomique Limon.
He is the son of Chief Petty Officer Anthony Limon, stationed in Sigonella, Italy. Lou-Anthony graduated as valedictorian of his class from a DOD high school in Sigonella. The only American residence he has ever had is in California. But he was turned down for resident tuition last year, while thousands of illegal aliens were granted millions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies.
Perhaps it would be useful for legislators in California, and elsewhere, to recall the old truism: if you subsidize something, you get more of it.
