Aid Thoughts

On CNN, an article about several contentious immigration bills which have been proposed in Texas. I find one of the bills particularly scary:

Another bill would place an 8% surcharge on all money wired from Texas to Latin America. About $480 million could be collected from money sent to Mexico alone, the representative said. The proceeds would be earmarked for state hospitals.

The bill is obviously trying to dull incentives to come to Texas and work. This is a huge shame, as it acts as a direct tax on remittances, which is essentially a tax on aid (albeit private aid). This is hard-earned money being diverted from poor families in Mexico to notoriously inefficient American health care.  While this might also be an attempt to get at untaxed income earned by illegal immigrants, it's also going to hurt Latin Americans who have come to the country legally.