Friday, March 09, 2007

Conventional Wisdom On Its Head

Researching the public pension issue has lead me to a few conclusions I am working on. Very few people are paying attention to what is going on and how dire the situation is.

A major casuality in an informed discussion of pension reform is the conventional wisdom on immigration. As the state plans run out of money we are going to need a lot more immigrants, not fewer. We will find ourselves increasingly desperate for the tax revenue they can generate. Kentucky needs to incentivize educated professional immigrants from anywhere to come to our state and stay. And as we age and find basic menial service providers more expensive, we will need more of the under-educated people as well.