Immigrant rights' protests should focus first on Mexico
By George W. Grayson
May 14, 2006
Only one minor problem marred the May 1 rallies by immigrant-rights demonstrators: they were directed at the wrong country. If activists really want
to highlight the impediments to opportunities of Mexican-Americans, they should concentrate their ire on the government south of the border and the
self-serving elite with which it works hand-in-glove.
They should recognize that Mexico, the world's 14th-largest economy, boasts wealth that would have made 19th century maharajahs green with envy.
Abounding in that cornucopia-shaped nation is oil, natural gas, gold, silver, copper, beaches, mountains, ports, fishing resources, ancient treasures,
incomparable art, world-class museums, and a large population of the world's most hard-working people. If Taiwan or Singapore could lease Mexico for
20 years, gringos would be whining about the ?colossus of the South? and hustling to take advantage of the ancient Aztec nation's surging growth.
But, instead, millions of Mexicans yearn to migrate to the United States for the better lives their own government isn't providing. Meanwhile, the
political elite that runs Mexico so poorly enriches itself at the public trough even as they cheer on their expatriate citizens demanding amnesty, an
expanded guest-worker program, and more visas from the United States.
President Vicente Fox, who leaves office on Dec. 1, takes in $236,693 plus benefits, which is more than most Latin American and European heads of
state earn.
Congressional salaries, benefits
Mexico's 500 deputies and 128 senators live extremely well, exemplifying the adage: ?Show me a politician who is poor and I will show you a poor
politician.? Although there are only two regular legislative periods ? Feb. 1 to April 30, and Sept. 1 to Dec. 31 ? the lawmakers' earnings exceed or
approximate that of many members of legislatures in industrialized countries that meet for longer periods. Mexican deputies bank $148,000 annually.
While this figure includes Christmas bonuses known as aguinaldos, it does not take into account payments for the constituent service they are expected
to provide for their staff members, and for coupons (vales) for food and other expenses. Mexico's taxpayers also pick up the tab for chauffeurs and
bodyguards for some deputies and senators.
Moreover, the leaders of Mexico's political parties have a legal honey pot from which they pour additional pesos on their colleagues who toe the
party's line. The amount allocated to the three major parties in 2004: Institutional Revolutionary Party/223 deputies ($15,892,668); Fox's National
Action Party/153 deputies ($10,297.611); and the nationalist-leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party/97 deputies ($7,359,122). Amazingly, the last
Chamber of Deputies (2000-03) conferred on its members a ?bonus for leaving office? (bonos de marcha) of $28,000 apiece.
Leaving aside special allocations, the pay and benefits of Mexican legislators puts them well ahead of their counterparts in France ($78,000 for a
nine-month session) and Germany ($105,000 for nine months) and nearly on a par with legislators in Italy ($163,000 for eight months) and the United
States ($162,000 virtually year-round) where living costs are much higher.
Despite such generous compensation, Jos? Alarc?n Hern?ndez, vice coordinator of the PRI's faction in the Chamber of Deputies, whines ?that we should
earn double because we make less than cabinet secretaries and they have less responsibilities than we have.?
Few would begrudge their pay and benefits if Mexican lawmakers had more to show for the several months they spend in the capital each year.
Regrettably, they prize vapid speech-making over the passage of major legislation. Since Fox took office 5 ? years ago, Mexico's Congress has failed
to enact fiscal, labor, energy, electricity, oil and judicial reforms. These measures are vital for propelling sustained development and social
mobility in a nation beset by high unemployment and where 10 percent of the country's households command 42.1 percent of total national income, while
the bottom 60 percent account for only 23.4 percent.
Of course, deputies and senators act with alacrity when the special interests whisper in their ears. They rushed through controversial legislation
that allows two conglomerates ? maxi-giant Televisa and mini-giant TV Azteca ? to retain their duopoly over telecasting. The legislation also gives
the titans entre into the Internet sector and broadband distribution, possibly without ponying up a single centavo.
State legislators
State legislators sometimes look after themselves better than their cousins at the federal level. Members elected to the 32 statehouses (including the
Mexico City Federal District) earn, on average, $60,632 ? more than twice that of their U.S. counterparts ($28,261), whose sessions are generally
longer. Only in dirt-poor Chiapas ($8,333) do state deputies receive less than the U.S. average.
For example, the salaries and aguinaldos of law makers in Baja California ($158,149), Guerrero ($129,630) and Guanajuato ($111,358) are higher than
the salaries of state legislators in California ($110,880), the District of Columbia ($92,500), Michigan ($79,650) and New York ($79,500). Many
Mexican and U.S. legislators also pick up stipends for travel, meals, lodging, special committee meetings and constituent service. Yet only in Mexico
do lawmakers regularly award themselves end-of-term bonuses that often total tens of thousands of dollars per member.
Governors
State legislators' salaries represent just a fraction of the bountiful resources to which Mexican governors have access. In 2005, average salaries
plus aguinaldos for Mexico's state chief executives equaled $125,759, which exceeded by nearly $10,000 the mean income of their U.S. counterparts ?
$115,778. Narciso Ag?ndez Monta?o, a cousin of his predecessor, runs Baja California Sur. Although his state has only 424,041 residents, he earns
$277,777. This is $100,000 more than the state check written to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who governs 36.1 million Californians.
Last Christmas, governors averaged aguinaldos of $14,346 a year when 60 percent of Mexicans received no year-end bonuses. In addition, state
executives' wives frequently head the local Integral Family Development program (DIF) in their states, enabling them to sock away six-figure incomes.
A few first ladies take their obligations seriously; some treat the post as a sinecure; others employ their staffs for political purposes.
Under the radar
Flying below the radar are many decision-makers in municipalities and low-profile agencies. Even as they weakened the city's freedom of information
law last year, members of the City Council in Saltillo, San Luis Potos, voted themselves a $20,556 end-of-term bonus. This tidy sum came on top of
their $52,778 annual salary.
A seat on Mexico City's Electoral Court represents a juicy plum. During its first seven years of operation (1999-2005), this body held 123 public
sessions to handle 594 election-related complaints. Even though the tribunal averaged only 1.7 sessions per month, each of the five judges took home
$104,859 annually in addition to aguinaldos and other benefits.
At a time when a large chunk of Mexico's 106 million inhabitants survive on less than $2 per day, the government grants millions of dollars to the
four living ex-presidents. In 2002 it forked out some $5 million to each former chief executive in pensions, housing, office equipment, travel, staff
and security.
Statistics of shame
Current and former politicians live like princes. At the same time, they egregiously overlook the plight of millions of ordinary Mexicans. Several
examples:
Taxes: When revenues from state oil and electricity companies are excluded, Mexico's federal government collects taxes equal to only 10 to 12 percent
of gross domestic product (GDP) ? slightly higher than Haiti, a socio-economic basket case, and far below Brazil's 36 percent. Not only is the
collection rate absurd, but the tax system is riddled with loopholes and exemptions, giving rise to widespread evasion.
Education: Low taxes explain why Mexico devoted only 5.3 percent of GDP to education in 2002, the last year in which the World Bank did a comparative
analysis. The country fell behind Guatemala (9.01 percent), Cuba (9 percent), Barbados (7.61 percent), Honduras (7.22 percent), Bolivia (6.31 percent)
and the Dominican Republic (5.82 percent). Mexico's middle class has abandoned public schools because they are controlled by the potent SNTE union.
Its boss plays a key role in the assignment of teachers, promotions, access to housing and other perks, and the appointment of school inspectors.
Concepts of merit evaluations and accountability are anathema to the SNTE's deeply entrenched leadership.
Health Care: Anemic federal outlays mean that Mexico earmarked only 6.10 percent of its GDP for health care in 2002 ? a percentage below such
countries as El Salvador (8 percent), Nicaragua (7.9 percent), Haiti (7.6 percent) and Cuba (7.5 percent). The problem is not only the low expenditure
on the well-being of Mexican citizens, but the crazy-quilt of publicly subsidized providers, many of which will face bankruptcy in a few years.
Barriers to competition
NAFTA opened Mexico to the world, but impediments to internal competition raise costs, diminish efficiency and limit growth. Only North Korea and
Mexico bar risk contracts in the exploration and production of oil at a time when Mexican hydrocarbon reserves are plummeting. The country also has
two sprawling state-run electricity companies that suffer from feather-bedding, corruption and inefficiency.
In the private sector, a small number of firms ? intimately tied to officialdom ? control telecommunications, television, food processing, radio,
transportation, construction and cement. In 2004, the ship Mary Nour and her 41-member crew were stuck at Mexican ports for months, barred from
unloading Russian cement by local producers who abhor competition. Cement giant Cemex, owned by the rich-as-Croesus Zambrano family, cited safety
concerns and technicalities to keep them out of what some call an overpriced local market.
Politicians who talk about ? much less propose ? trust-busting are as rare as a snowfall in the Sonoran desert.
Doing business: The World Bank Group found that it took 58 days to vault the legal and bureaucratic hurdles to open a business in Mexico compared with
two days in Australia, three days in Canada, five days in the U.S., nine days in Jamaica, 27 days in Chile and 32 days in Argentina.
Corruption: A study by Mexico's highly respected Private Sector Center for Economic Studies estimates that 34 percent of businesses made
?extra-official? payments to legislators and bureaucrats totaling $11.2 billion in 2004. In a similar vein, Transparency International (TI) ranked
Mexico as tied for 65th to 69th place among 158 countries surveyed for corruption. TI found greater corruption in Mexico than in Brazil, Bulgaria,
Colombia, Cuba and South Korea.
Conclusion: Self-serving policies permit Mexico's nomenklatura to live like princes, paying, at best, a widow's mite in taxes. They turn a blind eye
to improved education and health care ? the primary factors for social development and economic mobility ? while protecting the immensely wealthy and
powerful moguls who fatten their bank accounts thanks to the economic bottlenecks they have crafted, often with government collusion. Mexico's elite
finds it much less expensive and more convenient to thrust onto U.S. taxpayers responsibility for its malfeasance by using its northern border as an
?escape valve? for its nation's ?have-nots.?
Pro-immigrant organizations will meet in June to consider more mass protests. If they really want to focus on the cause of illegal immigration, they
should expose the hypocrisy of Mexico's political elite, which expects its northern neighbor to shoulder burdens that Mexico's powerful shirk.
Grayson, who teaches government at the College of William & Mary, has just published ?Mes?as Mexicano: Una biograf?a cr?tica de Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador (Mexico City: Grijalbo). Lopez Obrador is a leading candidate in the July 2 presidential contest. This article is based on Grayson's
backgrounder: ?Mexican Officials Feather Their Nests While Decrying U.S. Immigration Policy? (Washington, D.C.: Center for Immigration Studies, April
2006). Grayson can be reached via e-mail at or gwgray@wm.edu.
Matt
Baja Bernie - 5-16-2006 at 11:30 AM
A real must read--I was going to post it but you were here first---We all knew the politicians in Mexico had large hands but this really lays it out
for all to see.
AMAZING in its scope.elgatoloco - 5-16-2006 at 11:43 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by Baja Bernie
A real must read--I was going to post it but you were here first---We all knew the politicians in Mexico had large hands but this really lays it out
for all to see.
AMAZING in its scope.
It is amazing and sad. I just read it this AM, trying to catch up on my Sunday paper. I felt it was timely information, to say the least.Cincodemayo - 5-16-2006 at 12:04 PM
Just go to Mexico City and talk with some of the locals....Their system is so unrepairable it's close to implosion. Same with the USA the politicians
are so paid off and the BS meter is like listening to a Geiger counter going ballistic. Just like the Beatles song...I, ME, MINE.
[Edited on 5-16-2006 by Cincodemayo]
Thanks for the info
zforbes - 5-16-2006 at 12:58 PM
Appreciate your posting it.
utterly demoralizing
sylens - 5-16-2006 at 04:31 PM
not really surprising. a bit overwhelming with all the relevant data.
excellent information for us. just wish i had some ideas about how to begin to respond constructively.
thanks for the post. it's a keeper.Don Alley - 5-16-2006 at 05:03 PM
I heard this guy voice similar criticisms of politicians' pay when he visited Loreto:
But for some reason, some of you still won't be pleased.
But I got a free t-shirt!
The United States Shame
Skeet/Loreto - 6-3-2006 at 12:07 PM
The United States Shares Shame with Mexico;
On Memorial Day all over this country all the Wars were Listed Except,"The Forgotten War", " "The Police Action",also known as the Korean War where
58,000 where lost!
Newspapers and media coverage all over this country failed to even list this awfull War.
The Shame must go to the Lack of Education, The Media, the College Profs who failed to Educate the Facts.
So as Mexico shares its Shame so must the the United States share its Shame.!
God Bless all those who gave their Lives, their Bodies and their Hearts.
