Democrats say nyet to Trump’s request for $1B to get the border project started. The same Democrats who voted for it* in 2006, who include Sens. Schumer, Pelosi, Clinton, and Obama.
Of a $3Trillion budget, they are saying no to .1% (one tenth of one percent) of the spending budget. Shows how bad they don’t want to protect our border and our people. Not to mention how much they care for the will of the American people who elected him.
Below is a dialog of both sides of the issue swiped from my Facebook page. Commenting is Derek Cosson and myself. H/T to Derek for his civil, thoughtful response.
Have anything to add? Use the comment section provided.
Cosson The wall is a really dumb waste of money.
Calloway Disagree. If you want to talk waste of money. Border security, with a wall, double fencing, all the electronic bells and whistles, is a one-time charge of somewhere between $15-25 billion. One time. (At $25B, that comes to $200/household. Where do I send my check?) The financial cost of illegal aliens here is $113B PER YEAR, or $904/household, per year. There’s your waste of money. The burden on education, health care, infrastructure, prisons, jobs and unemployment is not the only cost. That $113B is not counting the social cost of these illegal aliens. Does not count the people illegals have killed, raped, robbed, and assaulted. That is the social cost you can’t put a price on.
Cosson Your argument rests on the premise that the wall would somehow eliminate illegal immigration, though, and it won’t.
Calloway They say illegal crossing has dropped considerably in the last few months. I don’t think a wall will “eliminate” illegal immigration. It will be doing all that we can do to prevent it. While not building a wall, fences, etc, will guarantee illegal immigration forever, drug cartels, terrorists, human traffickers, gangs, all that. To me it is no different that having a lock on the door of your home. Since it won’t stop a burglar, will you take your lock off?
Cosson It literally astounds me that anyone who claims to be a fiscal conservative could get behind this project. It’s the literal definition of government spending run amok. In addition to the insane capital cost of this wall, it’s going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year just to maintain it. All with literally zero evidence it will do anything at all to impact the problem it’s intended to address. If we build a wall, they will build ladders and tunnels. But the bottom line is this: we have an insane deficit. We cannot afford this, and its questionable benefit doesn’t merit charging it to the nation’s credit card.
Calloway When the gov’t does what it’s supposed to do, keep us safe and sovereign, I don’t see that as running amok. Granted there’s a lot of pencil sharpening to do to reduce deficits, and the unsustainable national debt. But in my first reply, the numbers demonstrate that a secure border, and enforcing immigration law, will do both. I just can not accept the notion that doing nothing to stop illegal immigration, and granting illegals amnesty and voting rights, is good for America. The problem is in Central America, and it’s not ours to fix. If their governments were not so corrupt, and economies so socialist broke, they wouldn’t have a reason to flee. But it’s just like our bleeding heart liberals to make the rest of us pay for their better future.
*Actually, in the 109th Congress, H.R. 6061 , Secure Fence Act of 2006, was for building a fence, with other bells and whistles, with the goal of gaining “operational control” of the border. The purpose of which was to keep out all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband. Congress passed the bill. President Bush signed it into law. It covered only 649 miles of the 2000 mile southern border. Trump’s proposal includes all that plus a wall in appropriate places.
