Democrats are keen on not letting a crisis go to waste. As soon as the Virginia shooting took place, liberals were immediately calling for more gun control even though the man who murdered the two news crew workers jumped through all the legal hoops. You can’t legislate against evil and crazy.

Donald Trump has lit a fire under the immigration debate. What he’s not talking about is the magnet that draws so many immigrants to their wealthy northern neighbor – the welfare state.

The only way we are going to win the anti-illegal immigration battle is to go to the root of the problem: America’s unconstitutional wealth-transfer system. We need to remove the incentives for people who come to the United States for a free ride.

The reason many illegal immigrants are willing to break American law to enter the United States is because it’s attractive to them in terms of monetary benefits. Many do come for jobs and work hard at them. We want these types of immigrants, but they need to follow the rules. Europe is suffering under its lenient immigration policies. Assimilation is resisted.

Life is better in the United States than it is in many Central and South American nations. The great immigrant movements of the 19^th and 20^th centuries came about because of economic opportunities and the pursuit of social and political liberty. The welfare state was almost non-existent.

Most people my age (I was born in 1950) are great grandchildren and grandchildren of immigrants. I lived in a neighborhood of second-generation immigrant families: Poles, Italians, Jews, Czechs, Ukrainians, Irish, and others.

After my father came back wounded in the Korean War (he had his right leg blown off), we lived in a housing development outside of Pittsburgh that overlooked the Monongahela River that was simply called “The Projects.” It has since been torn down.

The area was a booming steel, iron, and coal center that was populated and worked by immigrants. A dozen smoke stacks are all that remain as a reminder of what used to be. The Waterfront — a super-regional open air shopping mall spanning the three boroughs of Homestead, West Homestead, and Munhall near Pittsburgh — has replaced the once burgeoning steel industry that gave Pittsburgh its nickname — the Steel City.

But it could all turn to dust like the mills turned to rust if Americans don’t say no to the welfare state. If we don’t we will be overwhelmed by people who will eat our capital until there is nothing left.

We moved out of the projects when I was five. My parents purchased a house in the South Hills area of Pittsburgh with other families that were just starting out.

Illegal immigration was not an issue. Immigration was manageable because there were rules, and our nation was selective. Not everyone got in, but we knew that everyone in our neighborhood had roots sunk deep in distant lands and no one seemed to mind.

Everybody worked. There wasn’t much of a safety net. Most people lived within their means because they knew that there was no Great Society ready, willing, and able to bail them out of a financial fix.

So much has changed since then. The minimal safety net has become a system that often leads to a disincentive to work. Many illegal immigrants come from nations where government is seen as a solution to their problems. They are used to strong political figures.  America is viewed as the land of opportunity but with a benevolent ruling political class. In time, the United States could end up looking like Venezuela if people like Jorge Ramos, who holds dual citizenship and whose daughter works for Hillary Clinton, gets his way.

In order to pay for the influx of illegals who can’t find jobs, our government will have to make them part of the welfare state. Where this money come from? Higher taxes and more debt. We could become:

“Venezuela is preparing to issue bank notes in higher denominations next year as rampant inflation reduces the value of a 100-bolivar bill to just 14 cents on the black market.

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“Many Venezuelans have to carry wads of cash in bags instead of wallets as soaring inflation and a declining currency increase the number of bills needed for everyday purchases. The situation is set to get worse. Inflation, already the fastest in the world, could end the year at 150 percent, said the official.”

With regulations crippling our economy, job growth could remain stagnant for a long time and a burgeoning immigrant population with few jobs available could be a disaster.