Posted on 05/23/2018 10:10:46 AM PDT by BeauBo
President Donald Trump is set to bump up his request for (FY 19) border-wall funding by $500 million, a new report says.
The president will request at least $2.2 billion to build the wall in the budget for the next fiscal year, which begins in September, according to Politico.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
The extra (actually $600 million) would fund about 40 more miles of the high end urban Trump-Style barrier, that has been running about $15 million per mile (in addition to the 100 miles in the base request). 20-30 miles pretty much walls off a whole large urban area along the border (15 miles transformed San Diego).
So 140 urban miles next year would likely lock up the main open urban areas remaining along the border - The Rio Grande Valley, Laredo, El Paso.
Alternatively, they might put some of that toward less expensive ($10 million/mile) rural barrier in high traffic rural areas, like Arizona.
It is a nice chunk of effective barrier.
Also, the Army has recently (7 May) issued pre-solicitation notices, to also start building border barrier. No word yet on how much. Actual solicitations may be released as early as today (23 May 18):
https://www.fbo.gov/index.php?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=6016559bb48aa589adad17c8e39776ab&tab=core&_cview=1
https://www.fbo.gov/index.php?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=42bcca3fc957f0bb863365477405cd45&tab=core&_cview=1
Will he get it?
Make the Democrats, UniParty, Rinos vote against more funding.
This is a sound-byte generator for the fall campaign.
The proposal is a win-win for President Trump.
No more begging for nickels and dimes....
Go big or go home.
And Trump is not noted for simply going home.
Trump has already promised to shut the government down if he
does not get serious wall funding. And I can’t recall any promises
Trump has not kept that is within his power to keep.
“Will he get it?”
It will be a big battle for the election year budget, and we will likely have a continuing resolution through the election, the way things seem to be going so far. But the President holds strong cards in the budget negotiation - lots of potential rewards and punishments.
A lot depends on how the mid-terms turn out, but I think that having a detailed, formal budget submission through regular channels makes this new amount ($2.2 billion in FY 19) likely to be funded.
It looks like a few other credible efforts also exist to get even more funding appropriated in FY 19. The rescission package that the President is offering would offset the major new wall funding that he wants ($10-20 billion) - that is the heavy lifting required in the budget process.
Also, there is an amendment proposed to allow DoD funding to be used for border wall. That could potentially provide more per year than the DHS budget - billions more.
I don’t consider the crowdsourcing proposal to take donations for the wall to be very credible, unless they have something ready behind the scenes to contribute. It has been tried before, with little success. It would be very hard to collect $100 million dollars - probably more effective to contribute that toward the election.
Build the WALL! Ask for 15 billion. GET IT DONE! This will be more cost effective than processing the illegal aliens, social & healthcare program costs, judicial prosecutions and prison costs!
Build the wall, but remember this — a wall can be torn down easier than new statutory restrictions on immigration can be repealed.
What to happened to Mexico paying for the wall?
Why doesn’t he crowd fund it ... many of us would like to “own” a brick of that wall!
“What to happened to Mexico paying for the wall?”
As a practical matter, we need to get it done, and squeeze the money out of them over time, through other means, like NAFTA.
You could say that the loss of remittances back to Mexico, as lots of illegals are deported, is a financial loss to Mexico and a benefit to the USA (lower welfare and incarceration costs).
It is tough for a huge, rich country like the USA to dig up the $10 or $20 billion dollars required. Mexico could not muster that kind of money out of their federal budget, in the timeframes that we want.
Bottom Line: It is still worth doing, even if we have to put the investment up ourselves.
Let’s slap that 2% surcharge on money transferred from the USA to mexico.
If the country of Mexico won’t pay - get it from the illegals themselves.
If taxes and surcharges and special fees can be added to my gas, electric, phone, Internet bill (and they are without notice and without consent), they can surely do that.
Great idea.
That’s it?
“That’s it?” See Post #1 for more.
“The president will request at least $2.2 billion to build the wall in the budget for the next fiscal year”
“What to happened to Mexico paying for the wall?”
But let’s be serious: the Wall will benefit all of this nation. We spend over $100 billion/year on illegals for security, the direct cost of crime, extra police, jails, education, medical costs, etc., etc. Putting up the Wall for even $50 billion would have a break-even of about 6 months...and $50 billion is a vast overestimate of its cost.
Anyhow, Mexico will EFFECTIVELY pay for it with lost remittances from illegals (IMHO legals can do as they wish with their own money, so long as they’ve paid taxes on it the way that the rest of us must). But that’s not my focus - what is important IMHO is saving us from a lot of expenses, a lot of crime and a lot of drugs being poured into this country. Will the Wall solve every problem related to illegal immigration? No, not by a long shot...but the name of the game is progress, not perfection.
“That’s it?”
I just saw that the Washington Post (18 May) reported that the Budget request will be $2.5, rather than $2.2 billion (20 more urban miles, or 30 rural miles). https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-republican-war-breaks-out-over-immigration-taking-down-the-farm-bill-in-the-process/2018/05/18/fb06bf84-5ac5-11e8-858f-12becb4d6067_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3aba5dff70e1
I guess we won’t know till the budget gets past, but it seems that the Trump Administration is trying several approaches to getting more funding (see post 6). This formal budget request is the surest way to get funding, but it requires reams of documentation and verifications. Clearly, they have done a lot of homework to prepare it.
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