Of course Trump made it a major part of his campaign, but he thinks that being President is all about signing the final bill. It is up to the Congress to worry about the actual details. He has stated what he wants done, so it would seem to be the job of McConnell and Ryan to make his vision a reality so that he can sign. I mean, that is how this Presidency is run… sounds as though McConnell and Ryan didn’t get the memo.
I’m interested in figuring out how one achieves the goals set forth of building a wall and getting Mexico to pay for it. It doesn’t mean I believe in either goal being worth pursuing. I don’t, as if it needs to be said. One would think the increasingly desperate measures needed to make it ‘work’ would have made that pretty clear.
How is working cruel and unusual as a punishment?
Many states have prisoners that work.
No. It’s his idea therefore he should come up with a solution. Find champions in congress and have them write and vote on the bill. McConnell and Ryan do not now nor have they ever had an interest in building a wall. I think it’s the president that didn’t get the memo before opening his stupid fat gob.
[QUOTE=Alzarian]
I’m interested in figuring out how one achieves the goals set forth of building a wall and getting Mexico to pay for it. It doesn’t mean I believe in either goal being worth pursuing. I don’t, as if it needs to be said. One would think the increasingly desperate measures needed to make it ‘work’ would have made that pretty clear.
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Again, asked and answered:
What if the United States withheld in whole or in part the approximately 320 million dollars in financial aid to Mexico each year and instead earmarks it towards wall construction?
If the Mexican government suddenly stops getting that income… then perhaps we can say that Mexico pays for the wall… true?
As far as the books are concerned, the US would still provide 320 million dollars to Mexico… but there would also be a 320 million dollar wall tax Mexico would have to pay included in the payment package…
You saw what Trump said to Peña Nieto: it’s not actually important to him. He’s talking about it purely for optics. If he could build a fake, imaginary wall and show it on a reality TV show–and if that would dupe his supporters–he would just as soon do that. All he wants is to get cheers at his rallies.
Most of the Republicans in Congress aren’t nearly so easily fooled. This whole conversation and thread is a half-witted waste of time.
Isn’t most of that money geared towards fighting the cartels?
There would no doubt be people nit-picking that Mexico isn’t “really” paying for the wall under this proposed system, and also that $320 million per year still doesn’t cover the costs of the border wall (if the wall is $30-50 billion.)
No, the job of Congress is to carry out legislation to make America stronger and better. Your ideas would make America weaker and more unjust.
Actually it is closer to how can we make it to the moon within a decade and make the Soviet Union pay for it. It’s not going to happen.
I actually think both options A and B are about equally morally reprehensible but given that the cost of option A, (what with the cost of feeding housing, and guarding the inmates) will probably cost more American tax payer money than simply hiring laborers from Mexico, it doesn’t really solve the problem. Also the cost of unskilled labor on the wall is going to be a tiny fraction of the overall cost of the project. So your scenario can’t really in any way shape or form be plausibly claimed to succeed in the goal you set out. Invading and plundering Mexico at least has the advantage that it might conceivably net enough profit to pay for the wall.
However, to actually answer your question in the real world, here is the most likely scenario of how it could go down. We build the wall with government money as part of the federal budget, and at the same time increase tarrifs on goods coming into the United states from Mexico. Use creative accounting (or in Trump’s case simple lying) to minimize the declared cost of the wall and to maximize the proposed income from the tarrifs until they equal each other and declare victory. Now of course doing so will start a trade war with Mexico with major negative impact on the economy and it isn’t really Mexico that is paying for the wall but instead American consumers who are buying Mexican products. But you can still claim victory and that really the important thing.
The other scenario that has been floated around is to garnish or out right seize remittances that immigrant workers send back to Mexico. The problem with this is that as soon as you start doing this the whole system goes underground and so you won’t actually get very much money out of it. All you will do is create a new revenue stream for the Mexican Cartels (AKA band Hombres) but I wouldn’t put it past Trump to try this.
Why does the USA not have a Canadian illegal immigration problem? The standard of living in both countries is similar.
If the Mexican economy continues to grow, Mexican illegal immigration will no longer be be a problem.
NAFTA has led to growth in all three nations. Trump wants to kill off NAFTA and build a wall paid for by the Mexicans, which will only increase the illegal immigration problem. The best thing the USA could do to deal with the Mexican illegal immigration problem would be to dump Trump.
But to get around that, Mexicans in the US just need to wire their remittances to a bank or other service in a third country, which then remits the money to Mexico. Increases the cost a bit, but prevents outright confiscation by the US.
And then, there’s also a due process issue. Can the US government just seize all remittances to Mexico? Not likely.
So then the US government needs to have some way to distinguish between remittances by legitimate residents in the US, and those without a right of residence.
But if people are already getting by in the US, holding down jobs, probably with fake ID, how will the US government be able to identify them when they remit the money?
The remitter service will look at the fake ID, check the right box on the form saying the person showed ID, and send the money.
Even the Swiss share banking information when pressed hard enough.
And there are even green cars in Russia.
It does not have much to do with the sending of the wire transfers.
Unless you are only caring about the remittances to a bank account. But since only half the mexican population has a bank account, and it can be suspected a greater portion of those receiving the wires, the sharing of bank account information is an irrelevancy.
With Mexico being one of the highest crime Nations in the world, we must have THE WALL. Mexico will pay for it through reimbursement/other. - Donald Trump
Now we know how this will occur, as the President has just tweeted about it.
I’m surprised no one here was able to come up with the way it could be done: reimbursement/other.
You should ask him WTF he’s talking about with respect to: “reimbursement/other”.
Then get back to us.
Also, a wall wouldn’t stop the consequences of cross-border crime.
The wall wouldn’t stop people simply driving through entry points, displaying false ID, which is how fare more illegal crossing happens than people hiking over the desert.
(It’s like trying to stop high rates of gun crimes in the U.S. by banning…Derringers!)
Alzarian, what is your goal with respect to starting this thread?
If the goal was to demonstrate that it is impossible for Trump to fulfill his campaign promise without going to absurd extremes, then why are you arguing with those who agree with you?
If your goal is to have fun making up different absurd ways that Trump could theoretically accomplish this, then you probably shouldn’t have started it in great debates because there really isn’t a debate.
If you believe that Trump will actually build a wall and make Mexico pay for it and are wondering how he will accomplish this, get used to disappointment. Trump makes lots of claims but very few of them are actually true.
If you want to know in what ways Trump might make it look like he’s full filled his promise, then see post #150.
If you want to know what is actually going to happen, then it will be one of the following scenarios) ranked from most to least likely.
- some small portion of the wall will be made paid for by the federal government (possible with some creative accounting and lying to make it look like Mexico paid for part/all of it.)
- No additional wall will be built, and Trump will blame congress or pretend that the wall wasn’t really a priority
- a full wall will be built by the federal government (possible with some creative accounting to make it look like Mexico paid for part/all of it.)
My goal is simply trying to determine how the goals of building the wall and getting Mexico to pay for it may be achieved. Given how contentious this is, and that there doesn’t seem to be one correct answer, led me to believe Great Debates was the most appropriate thread to explore this.
My main thought laid out at the start was the idea that if Mexicans ‘pay’ for the wall, even if just by docking wages collected from their work on the wall, one could argue that this would fulfil the basic promise, even if it meant the Mexican government was not directly paying for it, but rather the individual Mexicans who cross the border illegally.
Now that the President has clarifies that the mechanism to get Mexico to pay for the wall will be done through Reimbursement/Other it would seem that the United States will make the initial financial investment and send the bill on the Mexico.
Finally, I’m not sure it is wise to dismiss this plan as simply a campaign promise. If Trump intended not to fulfill the promise - why would he continue to this day to insist that it is a major part if his administrations plan for our nation.
To keep his moronic supporters from catching on.