WASHINGTON (April 2006) -- Mexican politicians continuously demand increased immigrant visas for their citizens, an expanded guest-worker program, and amnesty for their illegal aliens living north of the Rio Grande. But while Mexico expects the United States to solve its social problems by allowing the border to serve as a safety-valve for job seekers, its government officials enjoy princely lifestyles and spend little of the nation's wealth on education and health care, which are crucial elements in promoting social mobility.
In a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies, ''Mexican Officials Feather Their Nests While Decrying U.S. Immigration Policy,'' William and Mary government professor George W. Grayson outlines the lavish salaries and benefits that Mexico's governing elite pays itself, as well as the minimal investments it makes in the country's social development.
The report, on line at http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/back306.html , includes the following findings:
* President Vicente Fox ($236,693) makes more than the leaders of France ($95,658), the U.K. ($211,434), or Canada ($75,582).
* Although they are in session only a few months a year, members of Mexico's Chamber of Deputies make $148,000 -- substantially more than their counterparts in France ($78,000), Germany ($105,000), and congressmen throughout Latin America. At the end of the last three-year term, Mexican deputies voted themselves a $28,000 ''leaving-office bonus.''
* Members of the 32 state legislatures earn on average twice the amount earned by U.S. state legislators ($60,632 vs. $28,261). The salaries and bonuses of the lawmakers in Baja California ($158,149), Guerrero ($129,630), and Guanajuato ($111,358) exceed the salaries of legislators in California ($110,880), the District of Columbia ($92,500), Michigan ($79,650), and New York ($79,500).
* Average salaries (plus Christmas stipends known as aguinaldos) place the average compensation of Mexican governors at $125,759, which exceeds by almost $10,000 the mean earnings of their U.S. counterparts ($115,778). On average, governors received aguinaldos of $14,346 in 2005 -- a year when 60 percent of Mexicans received no year-end bonuses.
* In 2002 Mexico earmarked only 6.1 percent of its GDP for health care. Mexico trailed Argentina (8.9%), Barbados (6.9%), Brazil (7.9%), Colombia (8.1%), Costa Rica (9.3%), Cuba (7.50 %), El Salvador (8.0%), Haiti (7.6%), and Nicaragua (7.9%).
* Mexico devoted just 5.3 percent of GDP to education in 2002, behind Barbados (7.6%), Cuba (9%), Honduras (7.2%), and Uruguay (8.5%).
George W. Grayson is the Class of 1938 Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary. Random House-Mondadori has just published Mesias Mexicano, his book on Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the front-runner in the July 2 Mexican presidential election.