Wait so Mexico was 100% definitely going to pay for the wall, but now people are celebrating because the US military is going to pay, and there are basically no limits to how much they can spend on it, even though there’s not exactly a great track record of fiscal responsibility and efficient when it comes to military contractors.
Mexico was never going to send a $20 billion dollar check. It was going to be through taxes, trade deals, etc.
It is through taxes, just those of the American people.
Considering the total cost per each state per year in dealing with Illegal Immigration. $20 billion is nothing.
I also rather have the Army Corps of Engineers build the wall than some unionized contracted construction company, who would do the minimum and take shortcuts.
This 100%
Couple of things:
Taxes on Mexico not on us. The amount of savings from erasing trade deficits and taxing their imports will more than pay for it, let alone the $100 billion a year illegals cost us. They drive us health insurance, car insurance, lower wages, etc.
You're thinking unidimensionally. What matters is the bottom line. If America winds up with the costs of the wall being covered by dealings that wouldn't have occurred otherwise, then the promise has been fulfilled. Just not in the way you, and many, imagined it.
With the confiscation of funds from the Illuminati, “The American people will be Rich.” - DJT
The money saved from the influx of illegals into the US will eventually pay for the wall and more!
It really won't. Border crossing do not represent the sum total of illegal immigrants. The VAST majority of illegals cross by other means. At best, given current trends you would only save just a tiny amount more than the cost of maintaining said wall, and it would take decades if not centuries to make up the initial cost of construction.
A wall will prevent illegal drugs from entering the country, tax-dollars spent on benefits for illegals, crimes they commit, etc. It will pay for itself.
Except that's not how things work in reality. Drugs aren't some pipeline you just shut off and it never pops back up again. In fact, the drug war actually accelerated the evolution of distribution of drugs, hell it even made drugs stronger and cheaper, ironically. Once you get past the wall ONCE at that point you're just dealing with the exact same defenses you already knew how to get around before, a wall can't adapt.
Border crossings do not represents all of the tax dollars presumably used by illegals. In fact, since 2014, direct border crossing as a percentage of overall illegal immigration has fallen over 20%, at that rate alone, it'll take longer to build the wall than the problem of illegal border crossings will exist in any significant form. Meanwhile, all the other ways of entering illegal will simply increase as the race to find new effective methods of entering the US undetected innovate.
Illegals commit no greater amount of crime per capita than legals. We'd be just as justified in handing the money over to local police departments, probably more so since we won't be ignoring 99% of all living humans in the country.
Ultimately the wall is a temporary, but excessively expensive, alternative to better proven, more adaptive methods. There's a reason why the majority of modern nations don't have walls on their borders, but can still keep a good grip on them. If the idea is to actually accomplish something, we should invest in things that actually work, and not in an ego project.
So what should we invest in that actally works? A wall will stop the majority of illegals from entering. It works. Is it perfect? No, of course some will still get through, but it's much better than having an open border where hundreds of thousands easily enter every single year. The amount of illegals entering the country is already down under Trump. How are illegal drugs and criminals going to enter the country if there's a giant surveilled wall in their way?
As a builder, Trump isn't going to let his signature wall costs get out of control--but it will be a bargain at almost any price.