As regular readers of this space know, I’ve argued for a number of years that the whole obsession over the debt and deficit is just crazy. It’s a manufactured crisis and evidence just keeps mounting that the entire austerity-budget-cutting mania is just foolish and, on the facts, wrong. But, if you want to worry about the deficit, here’s a nice wrinkle that will frustrate the hell out of the “keep immigrants out” bozos: immigration cuts the deficit.

Via Citizens For Tax Justice, citing a Congressional Budget Office report:

According to the CBO, the bill would generate $459 billion in additional revenue over the next decade. Allowing unauthorized immigrants to seek legal status would increase tax compliance, and also increase the wages and thus the taxes of those same immigrants. In addition, the CBO found that the increase in the immigrant population and the number of individuals working in the US as a result of the bill would also substantially increase revenue.

Yowzah. What now? How will the nativists refute a fact-based argument? Oh, give Sarah Palin a call, I gather.