TN State Republicans Reject Immigration Study They Commissioned

Nashville Public Radio  reports that Republican state legislators, in an effort to demonstrate the strain that refugee services place on the tax-paying public, requested that the state Fiscal Review Committee investigate the impact of refuge resettlement in Tennessee.  The answer?  Refugees pay $37 million more in taxes than in services they receive.  In other words, refugees are the tax-paying public.  Legislators’ response?  Reject the study.  State Rep. Joe Carr (R-Lascassas) says, “We don’t know if it’s flawed. But we don’t know if it’s accurate. So if we don’t know if it’s accurate or flawed, what was the point of the study?”  I think it’s clear what the point of the study was thought to be; it is just as clear that reality doesn’t support the premise.  By the way, this isn’t the first time that state legislators have been rebuffed by the facts on immigration economics.  Peruse this blog back five or six years and you’ll read about a prior state legislative hearing that ended much the same way.