Why Is Trump's Wall A Bad Thing?

[CJD]

(01-31-2019, 01:42 AM)BFritz21 Wrote: The wall isn't going to cover the entire border, so whoever is claiming the 20 billion price range is wrong.

Also, people don't look at it as good business for the country:  don't hire just one company to build it, hire multiple; use workers that are citizens to build it, and use citizens for the upkeep.

You're keeping money in the county and putting citizens to work.

If you're referring to natural barriers, the $25 billion dollar figure (given by Fox News, Trump's people) already accounted for that.

Quote:In 1993, President Bill Clinton mandated the construction of a 14 miles-long wall between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs across our border. Then, in 2006, the Secure Fence Act under President George W. Bush authorized the construction of physical barriers (a wall and fences) along another 654 miles. About 130 miles of the border without a physical barrier has natural barriers.

So really we are talking about roughly 1,150 miles. If you drive at 60 miles per hour, that would take you about 19 hours as the eagle flies.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trumps-border-wall-how-much-it-will-actually-cost-according-to-a-statistician

And while the money would go to American companies (Ideally. With Trump you never know. He may just hire illegal Mexicans to build it, just for the irony factor), you could say that about literally any structural project done in America.

For that same money, you could begin projects on fixing the infrastructure of this country which Engineers estimate is approximately 4.5 trillion dollars over the next 6 to 7 years.

https://www.businessinsider.com/asce-gives-us-infrastructure-a-d-2017-3

Trump has proposed an Infrastructure plan that would cover 1.5 trillion dollars, 200 billion of which will be directly funded by the U.S. Government. Where the rest of the money is coming from is based a lot on the assumptive responsibilities of local and state governments.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-infrastructure-plan-details-bill-2018-2

The 25 billion dollars that would theoretically go to this Wall would instead be the first 8th of that infrastructure plan.

Of course, as far as I know, Trump  hasn't even put this Infrastructure plan through Congress yet, so who knows how much of it will ever materialize. But the fact is America has bigger bills. Bills in the trillions of dollars. Just to repair what we already have.

https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/388071-trumps-infrastructure-plan-hits-a-dead-end

Adding a Wall and then the maintenance of that wall to the already strained budget of the Federal Government will only cause damage to the ambitions of repairing the infrastructure that Americans actually need, which is bridges, roads, highways and water systems.