I just read a speech Benjamin Powell gave titled Immigration, Economic Growth, and the Welfare State. The entire transcript is a good and easy read, but I have to copy a quote from it that only shows that government fixes problems with even more problems:
Milton Friedman has said, “It’s just obvious, that you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.” Conservatives and classical liberals should agree with a resounding “here, here,” and it’s time to abolish the welfare state.
I doubt there are many supporters of the welfare state in this room. But it is a mistake to take the welfare state’s existence for granted and use it as an excuse to condone government interventions in immigration. This is the problem Ludwig Von Mises famously pointed out in his book The Dynamics of Interventionism. One government intervention in the economy produces undesirable and unintended results and planners are confronted with the choice of making further interventions or repealing prior ones. All too often, government chooses the former. [emphasis mine]
