(Immigrants, taxation and higher wages).
There is a lot to unpack in your post, and we are not in my area of expertise, since I am an electrician and not an economist. That said, just as there are many conservative economists who would support your conclusions, I am also aware of many more progressive experts in the field of economics who would claim that the exact opposite is true.
Studies here have shown that immigrants actually contribute far more in taxes than they take in public assistance, and once here, the great majority are just as law abiding as the rest of the community, often doing the jobs that others are unwilling to do, such as harvesting crops.
We can hopefully agree that some taxes are necessary. When properly applied to maintaining our infrastructure, more revenue is returned to the economy through the good-paying jobs that are created. Good private charities such as St. Vincent de Paul can never meet the demand that is met here by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Tax cuts that favor the wealthy, and trickle down economics, relying on the benevolence of the wealthy to help the poor, according to many studies simply does not work, and has been rejected by no less than Pope Francis himself in Evangelii Gaudium, “In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about great justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.” (I am aware of the numerous attempts that have been made to reinterpret his words).
Higher wages, which creates and sustains a sizeable, stable middle class, is actually a boon for the economy, at least it has been here in the U.S., since more consumer goods are purchased, resulting in more jobs and a more healthy economy. Again, from Evangelii Gaudium, “While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the rights of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control.”
It is important is that we don’t use the Gospel to somehow justify the rich growing ever richer while the poor grows ever poorer. Like it or not, the Church teaches that gross income inequality is an injustice. “Inequality is the root of social ills,” says Pope Francis, “We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market. Growth in justice requires more than economic growth, while presupposing such growth;
it requires decisions, programs, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to the better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality.”
