It isn't that Nancy and I don't want a wall, we just don't want your name attached to it.
Posted on 12/26/2018 3:00:51 PM PST by Moseley
A total of $17,313,633 had been donated by 284,843 individuals in just 9 days as of late afternoon December 26, to fund part of the border wall. The campaign is a GoFundMe appeal started by U.S. Air Force veteran and triple-amputee Brian Kolfage. His campaign has more information at www.WeFundTheWall.com. A parallel appeal by the American Border Foundation has raised another $191,755 at www.FundTheWall.com.
Attempting to discourage this effort, Democrats and the mainstream news media are arguing that the government is not allowed to accept donations for a specific purpose, Congress would have to vote on it, and — to subtly sow doubts — “it isn’t clear” how this would work. The surge of popular support undercuts the narrative of open borders activists that the border wall is not popular or that support for Trump is eroding.
Criticism from ABC News, Democrats and others that it isn’t clear how this would work doesn’t mean that the organizers have doubts. Brian Kolfage declares that his group has contacts discussing the plans with the Trump Administration. The American Border Foundation claims to have an even more extensive plan worked out.
So can private donations help build Trump’s border wall with Mexico? I will say yes, as an attorney for 21 years, having worked for both Judicial Watch and Larry Klayman’s current Freedom Watch, and worked for five years in the federal government including in budgeting and expenditure issues.
First, let’s start with the clincher: Who would object? Courts state and federal have been waging a war on citizens who want to hold their government to the law. Courts keep raising the bar on who has “standing” to bring a lawsuit in court, closing the door on the courts to the citizens who pay for them.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigleaguepolitics.com ...
Left-wing organizations will rush to the nearest federal judge. What “standing” do they have to object? If I withhold from you $1,000 I owe you, you have been aggrieved. If I give you $1,000 you did not expect or have any right to, how have you been harmed? So if the federal courts follow their own oft-repeated rules on why citizens cannot require the government to follow the law, they will have to find that no one has standing to object to a windfall.
Second, however, it has long been the law that private citizens can donate to the government. In 2012, a billionaire donated $7.5 million to help rebuild the Washington monument after the August 2012 Virginia Earthquake. Most of the legal authority focuses on when a taxpayer can deduct a donation to the U.S. Treasury from his or her income taxes. Most legal discussion involves general donations to reduce the national debt. Believe it or not, the Bureau of the Public Debt gets a lot of private donations every year.
Laws and regulations specific to different departments and agencies provide different rules. For example, the regulations for the U.S. Department of Defense provide procedures unique to helping soldiers and sailors. Some legal authority pertains to donating to medical research, museums, libraries, or schools.
“...the government is not allowed to accept donations for a specific purpose”
WTH?
Yeah. Only confiscated money, and we have no say in it.
2,000 miles of wall at $2K per foot is about 21 billion.
What about the Statue of Liberty? I seem to remember Reagan calling on school children back in the 80s to send in their pennies to restore her finish.
The swamp has thrown enough doubt to slow the momentum. If people knew for sure the money we contributed to this would go for the wall without worrying about it getting lost to the general fund or some rat judge blocking the money from being used for the wall the donations would go through the roof.
bttt
Seventeen million is a good start ... and if it’s clear that the government can accept it, and that DHS (or whatever) WILL use it for the intended purpose, more WILL follow.
If there is a hurricane I approve of my tax dollars going to relieve Americans who were in the way. In addition I donate my own money to help. When there are wildfires I don’t object to tax dollars help rebuild and I add my own money to help. When 9-11 hit the entire country donated to help NYC including replacing fire trucks with pennies collected by school kids. Why would this be any different?
I want to ask those people who don’t want the wall built because it doesn’t affect them if they would expect help if a disaster hit their city or state.
The potential abuses to such a precedent would be without number. As amusing as this is, one moment of thinking what this looks like in the hands of Tom Steyer with the next Obama should be enough to convince anyone of the foolishness of the principle. It would completely alter the form of government.
Simpler. The wall does have money budgeted for it, just not as much as Trump wants. Companies are going to be constructing sections of it.
Just go to a company, and make a deal with them. They get Kolfage’s money invested in them. In exchange, they offer to build X-yards more of the wall than their bid was originally planning to cover, with the extra being designated “The People’s Section” of the wall.
The wall around Yemen - a 1,800km (1,100-mile) fence to stop terrorists and refugees.
The construction of the wall started in 2008 and it will cost $8.5 billion. That’s several million per mile. It includes advanced weapons checks because Yemen is in a civil war.
The 900-km (560 mile) wall built between Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Build for one billion dollars by EADS for Saudis - but includes other defense projects.
1.7 million US per mile as top estimate
I could use value of 2 million per mile, 2000 miles.
That gives us: Four billion to build a US wall.
Suppose the military fluff I excluded is part of the actual cost.
High end estimate is still 8 billion total.
We spend more on that for welfare, healthcare and education for illegal immigrants and their children PER YEAR.
It isn't that Nancy and I don't want a wall, we just don't want your name attached to it.
My one concern is that GoFundMe has to issue a 1099 to the recipient of the money. If it passes through the hands of Brian Kolfage he may be liable for a big tax bill.
I have contributed so, I’m all for this effort!
2,000 miles of wall at $2K per foot is about 21 billion.
there is already a wall/fence....trump wants 5 billion to fill in some of the gaps and repair old barriers
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
Not if he sets up a 501(c)3 or even a 501(c)4 like Freerepublic.
But what I would prefer to see is the left setting up GoFundMe to support all of their illegal alien parasites. How much do you think they would raise?
Every bit helps. Just do it. The President announced that there are contracts to build over a hundred miles of wall on the TX-MX border and a shorter one on the CA-MX border. Great things have been done with persistence over time.
The problem wouldn't be an agency accepting the money, it would be the agency having the authorization to spend the money without an underlying bill from congress.
The Border Fence GoFundMe is private money, but once it is accepted by the government, it becomes public funds, and can only be spent as approved by congress.
At least, that would be my unfortunate take, so I hope I am wrong.
Perhaps you could donate an amount equal to the proceeds you get from excerpting your clickbait here on Free Republic.
CAN be.
But WON’T be.
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