[raybbr]

Well, we are preparing to pay $31 million per mile for roads in Texas. How much can the wall really cost?

Economic Costs: Based on the estimated construction cost of $31.4 million per mile, the 4,000-mile Texas sections of the NAFTA corridors will cost $125.5 billion, not including right-of-way and miscellaneous costs. Adding in right-of-way costs of $11.7–$38 billion and miscellaneous costs of $8–$20 billion, the estimated total outlay for the NAFTA corridors in Texas ranges from $145.2 billion to $183.5 billion. Cost estimates for the entire NAFTA corridor system have not been disclosed but could double those figures. Public return on this massive investment will be minimal because, even though the NAFTA corridors will be toll roads, most of the profits will flow to private entities under exclusive development agreements with the various state governments. This move to privatize highways contrasts sharply with the U.S. Interstate Highway System that was built with public money and benefited the nation at large.

Thirty-one million dollars a mile!!!!!!

[Jeremiah2911]

Yikes! So illegals get a nice, comfy (re: Autobahn) ride before they cross over.

[Cvengr]

2 lane 2-lift, 4" asphalt over 12" scarified and 8" aggregate base highway on unimproved real estate runs about $1 million in 2000 without land acquisition cost. Today that might be $2 million. Tack on another million for bureacracy and a million for real estate and the $31 mil still reads at about an order of magnitude greater than actual cost.

[NewRomeTacitus]

Thirty-one million dollars per mile for the border fence? Someone's been getting ahold of that hallucinogen the Supreme Court said an obscure church has a right to trip on.

Seriously, if we go with classic lowest bidder combined with border-hoppers forced to perform construction this would come in WAY under these grossly inflated cost estimates. My way has the added disincentive value of those lining up on the other side seeing the hard labor being done by those who preceded them.

The only problem we have with border enforcement is citizens interfering with it...bad business-people needing neoslaves to compete with the law-abiding should be allowed to fail instead of getting a bye from strategic political contributions (at the expense of the honestly successful).

It's all about corruption. Are we going to clean up our act and resume our place as the world's role model or are we going to "get along to go along" into a stagnate backwater of our own making?