President-elect Donald Trump made the construction of a 1,000-mile wall along the nation’s southern border the centerpiece of his bid for the presidency.
Again and again at his rallies, he promised to turn back the tide of illegal immigrants entering the country by building a “big, beautiful wall,” adding that this would be “a real wall, not a toy wall” such as the fences that now run along some sections of the border.
“I will build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me,” he said. “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.”
Now, with Inauguration Day looming, he has to live up to that promise. And to the surprise of almost no one, except for those who actually took Trump at his word, the wall is to be paid for by the American taxpayer.
Not to worry, Trump says; Mexico will eventually reimburse the United States for the cost. At his press conference last week, he admitted that he’s unsure how and when that will happen, saying it could be through “a tax” — he likely meant a tariff — or a more direct “payment,” but said it will happen in “a year and a half, probably sooner.”
But Mexico still insists it isn’t going to pay for a wall, and even now, after 20 months of thoughtful analysis by Team Trump, the president-elect has yet to figure out a way to force the issue. All we get are increasingly vague assurances, which are invariably prefaced with the president-elect’s favorite catchphrase, “Believe me …,” which is Trumpspeak for, “I have no facts to back up what I am about to say, so please take all of this on faith.”
That brings us to the actual cost and viability of building an impenetrable wall on the border. Former Texas governor and current Trump Cabinet nominee Rick Perry said last year that the wall envisioned by the president-elect would take years to construct, and he questioned whether it was even possible given the challenges of the terrain and property acquisition. “I know,” Perry said, “because I’ve had to deal with it.”
Trump is unruffled. “Building a wall is easy,” he says, “and it can be done inexpensively.”
No one else appears to agree with that assessment, including the Republicans in Congress who support Trump, have studied the issue and are the leading proponents of this plan. Legislation they have authored pegs the initial cost at $10 billion, and some say the final cost is likely to be twice that amount.
That is a staggering sum of money, even by the inflated-spending standards of the federal government. What’s more, this expense would be incurred at a time when Mexicans are actually leaving the United States in greater numbers than they are arriving. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, 1 million Mexicans and their families left the United States between 2009 to 2014. During that same period, 870,000 Mexican nationals left Mexico to come to the United States.
Apprehensions of unauthorized migrants plummeted in fiscal 2015 to their lowest level in nearly 50 years, according to data from the U.S. Border Patrol, and between 2005 and 2016, they fell from 1.2 million to 408,870.
To put the cost of Trump’s $20 billion wall in perspective, consider this. The price tag is 20 times what Congress just agreed to spend addressing the opioid epidemic. It’s also 20 times what Trump proposes the federal government spend on the Zika virus. And it’s five times the cost of those two heavily modified 747s that will serve as Air Force One — an expense that Trump has called “ridiculous.”
So where do our fiscally conservative lawmakers in Congress stand?
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican from New Hartford, doesn’t see what the big deal is. “We’ve already appropriated money for walls,” he says. “We’ve got walls right now.”
And U.S. Rep. Steve King, the Republican from Kiron, is untroubled by the notion of taxpayers fronting the cost of the wall. “If we build that wall,” he says, “and Donald Trump hasn’t figured out how to get Mexico to pay, I’m not going to be the guy who says, ‘Let’s wait until we get this in pesos.’ ”
King, who owns a construction company, has repeatedly suggested, on his congressional website and on the floor of the House, that his company should build the wall. In fact, he told Iowa Public Television shortly after the election that Trump “wants to make it beautiful, and I say, ‘Let me build it. I’ll make it work. I’ll make it big, you worry about beautiful.’ We could have a good wall.”
There’s no question America needs border security. The only question is whether it needs a 1,000-mile wall that costs $20 billion. As Republicans are quick to point out, the nation has a $587 billion deficit and needs to cut back on spending, not shovel more money into projects that are unnecessary or wasteful.
This was never more true than today. The Tax Policy Center, which is a nonpartisan organization, has estimated that Trump’s tax plan could add $7.2 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. Even the conservative Tax Foundation says Trump’s proposals are likely to cost the Treasury $4.4 trillion over 10 years.
In this context, construction of the wall is not only wasteful, but fiscally irresponsible.
Trump, however, is still basking in the afterglow of campaign rallies where thousands of adoring supporters cheered him and chanted, “Build the wall!” During one surreal moment at last week’s press conference, Trump was asked precisely how Mexico will be made to pay for the wall. He then took the opportunity to stroll wistfully down memory lane, back to the days when such questions were never asked of him.
“Remember, OK, I would say we are going to build a wall, and people would go crazy,” he reminisced. “I would then say, ‘Who is going to pay for the wall?’ And people would all scream out — 25,000, 30,000 people — because nobody has ever had crowds like Trump has had. You know that. You don’t like to report that, but that’s OK.”
For Donald Trump, his ability to make good on a promise is less important than his ability to convince people that he’ll deliver. Like the carnival barker and the snake-oil salesman, he defines “success” by his sales pitch, not by the quality of his product.
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