This is the first item on the infrastructure bill he promised after the train crash.
Not the request of a “genius.”
Chuck? Nancy?
Okay, here we go in …3…2…1…
I know this is an AP article but don’t ya think they could mention that these same Pukes in the upcoming year want to pay for all of tRump’s vanity projects by cutting retirement benefits to hard-working Americans, and going after Medicare and Medicaid too. Somewhere they should question how the fuck this country should be forced to pay for this bullshit after just giving billionaires a huge windfall by way of tax cuts, and the ability to pass on their estates to their family when they’ve already eliminated the inheritance tax to the filthy rich without paying a fucking dime. Fuck that. Let those fucking rich pricks pay for it. Its such a stupid idea to begin with.
Oh hey, remember when Mexico was gonna pay for it? You don’t hear that anymore, do ya? Go fuck yourself, tRump.
If you want $18 billion, find the NEW revenue to pay for it! Maybe a tax increase?
Otherwise, no, no, no!
The proposal by Customs and Border Protection calls for 316 miles (505 kilometers) of additional barrier by September 2027, bringing total coverage to 970 miles (1,552 kilometers), or nearly half the border, according to a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the matter.
So for $18 billion, Trump promises to increase the length of the current border fencing by 1/3, which still leaves half the border unfenced. And even in the unlikely event that Congress allocates the full amount he’s asking for and the work is completed on schedule, the 300 miles of new “wall” won’t be finished until 2027.
In other words, even in his own best case scenario, Trump doesn’t expect to come anywhere close to fulfilling his promise to build a wall along the entire border.
Meanwhile, the chances of Mexico paying for the wall as Trump promised (but no longer mentions) continue to hover as close to 0% as is possible in an anything-is-theoretically-possible world.
I’d love to see a national referendum on a tax increase to fund the wall. Then we’d see how much people really want that damn thing.
Trump: I will invade Mexico in my second term and get the money back. Till then, I want Democrats to give me the billions I need for the wall.
Not just a tax increase, but a levy on the top .1% of Americans - the Mercers, the Kochs, the Waltons, etc. They support the GOP and Trump’s policies, so they should be THRILLED to have a chance to put their money where their mouths are.
This should be proposed publically and let the GOP explain how they plan to pay for the thing if this plan isn’t acceptable.
And, as if on cue or just on auto-reply, when asked about it at the Camp David presser, he says that “Mexico will pay for the wall in some way.”
IIRC, GWB started a few wars and then cut taxes to not pay for them.
Now, DJT cut taxes bigly and plans to spend billions on a border wall.
When will the voters see that the GOP brand isnt about shrinking the size of government and drowning it in a bathtub? The GOP love to spend big money, just not on the health and welfare and common good of the people.
Some fun facts:
• At $18 billion for 722 miles, that’s just shy of $25 million per mile
• 722 miles is 37% of the 1954 mile long border, just a little over 1/3. If all 1954 miles of the border were walled, that would cost about $49 billion.
• A new 6-lane interstate highway cost $7 million per mile in rural areas, $11 million in urban. The wall costs 2 to 3.5 times as much per mile as the wall.
• For the cost of the wall, you could build a 2384 mile long interstate highway (assuming 20% urban and 80% rural). I-70 from its start in Baltimore to its end in Utah is 2151 miles. We could rebuild it and add another 233 miles and continue it to near Las Vegas.
From PolitiFact California:
• During his campaign, Trump initially said he could build a wall for $4 billion and later estimated $6 billion to $7 billion. In April 2017, he put it at $10 billion or less.
• In July 2016, Bernstein Research, a firm that analyzes material costs, put the price tag at $15 billion to $25 billion, for a wall that stretches 1,000 miles and is 40 feet high, which was Trump’s initial desired height. For 722 miles, those costs would be $11-18 billion.
Clearly the wall costs at the higher end of estimates or more. And way more than Trump claims. And we all know federal programs never have cost overruns! It’s also far shorter than the border, and we know no one would ever go around it.
I wonder how far $18,000,000,000 would go toward identifying and eliminating the root causes of people in Mexico and Central America (the bulk of NA immigrants) trying to get into this shining city on a hill by whatever means they can?
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
-Ronald Reagan, former brightest star in the GOP firmament now blithely kicked to the curb.
Seriously, Republicans.
Our taxes are going up, our health care is disappearing, we’re increasing the national debt, and we have to hand over our Social Security savings… for 70 miles of fencing?
“The wall” is waste.
The vast majority of undocumented immigration occurs in other ways, the wall will just assure that that fact remains.
I predict a high profile section or a few at typical border crossings and a major cave by Republicans on DACA.
Basically an incomplete wall, as we have right now, is a submarine with screen doors. Leaky IOW.
Which, come to think about it, is the general theme of this administration.
That $18 million could fund research that cures Alzheimer’s. Mexico might be persuaded to pay for that if it puts Trump in a clinic for a few years while he gets the cure?
And it still won’t be the Great Wall Trump promised. Even if it is ever built, one of Kim’s first missiles would destroy it easily.
This boondoggle will only be built in the GOP alternative universe. There is graft and then there is horse manure. Trump’s Great Wall lies somewhere in between in the Twilight Zone.
Is he going to ask Americans to forgo social security increases to pay for this boondoggle?