Seems expensive.
We’ll close some more schools.
Actually I don’t think it would be.
The US military troops have to be stationed, fed, equipped and housed *somewhere *regardless. Doesn’t make much cost difference whether a soldier is near the Mexico border, at a base in Georgia, or at a base in Idaho. The expense is already there.
Stations every five miles along the US-Mexico border would be a one-time construction expense. That’s nearly four hundred such stations. At a cost of, say, $7.5 million apiece, that would be around $3 billion. To put that in perspective, that would be a mere **0.1 percent **of a $3-trillion federal budget.
As for food, water and medical assistance for illegals - isn’t that what liberals have been arguing all along that we should provide for these people? So why are there complaints?
You haven’t thought this through. While the troops are deployed at the border, do you close the bases in Idaho and Georgia? You save on beans and bacon, but the real money is in fixed costs of maintaining the facility, whether the troops are there or not.
Any deployment is expensive.
Or, you know, we could trim back on the tens of billions of dollars that get lost in Medicare fraud.
I’m all for that. Itemize them, please.
What’s your solution, then?
Have fun.
I don’t think anybody disputes there is fraud in Medicare (as there is in every insurance program). What you need to itemize is what specific steps you’d take to eliminate this fraud (and how much those steps will cost).
What are the troops doing on their bases in Georgia and Idaho, and what is the cost of them NOT doing that so they can patrol the border?
For example, most troops stateside spend a great deal of time training for operations overseas, including preparing for deployments. If they don’t get that training or that preparation time, then what? Or do you end up with troops in Georgia AND troops on the border, effectively doubling your cost?
Good News! All of the fraud itemized in that story has been stopped and prosecuted. Are you satisfied?
No, it mentions only a few specific examples that were stopped - examples that only account for a small fraction of the $50+ billion fraud’s overall picture.
The removal of a few trees doesn’t mean the whole forest is gone.
There’s nothing easier in the world than to say “We don’t need to raise taxes or cut services! All we have to do is eliminate waste and fraud”. Unfortunately, it’s a lot easier said than done. If it was easy, we’d have already done it. When I hear a candidate promise to cut waste and fraud, I immediately dismiss him.
Agreed, but it still needs to be fought. $50+ billion in fraud is a larger sum of money than the entire GDPs of some countries.
At any rate, we’re getting off topic of this thread.
Itemize the whole forest then. Fraud cannot be corrected by pointing at a forest and saying, “There’s a lot of bad stuff out there!”
These actually seem pretty reasonable. Not sure they are all practical, but I commend you for making a good faith effort (which is something most on your side and many on mine are uninterested in.)
iiandyii keeps on telling me I’m wrong about this, but his fellow Democrats are bringing up the competence issue AGAIN:
Even his political instincts are starting to look bad now. The guy who says he isn’t interested in photo ops spent his time in Texas while not visiting the border doing… photo ops.
No they’re not. Disagreeing with the President about something is not “bringing up the competence issue”. Your bias makes you incapable of reading anything about the President without coloring it with your personal animosity towards the man.
Halperin-esque faux-punditry. Just pathetic nonsense. You fail at trying to sound like an objective observer.
Ah, yes, Democrats are just pleased as punch with how the President is handling the border problem, it’s clear from the article. He’s doing a heckuva job. His communication with them has been superlative in fact, they merely forgot what he told them, that’s why they are all confused.
I’m not sure what the right really wants Obama to do about the border problem. Obama personally can’t do much. He is constrained by law about how these kids are to or are being handled.
You can’t just push them back into the desert. You can’t load them on buses and send them home. The law requires they be treated a certain way.
If Obama does or does not do any particular thing, he will be criticized.
If he follows the law and the kids get housing and hearings, the right complains. If he were to load them on buses or planes and send them right back, he will be criticized for ‘being the Imperial president who is breaking the law.’
Why does anyone think Obama should go to the border? What do you want him to do there?
If he doesn’t go, he gets criticism. If he did go, he would have been criticized for ‘photo-opping.’ A picture with him with any kids would promptly get published as “Obama Welcomes Border Kids.”
The right sets ridiculously weird standards for Obama’s behavior but the real truth is that he can do nothing right in their eyes. Plus, the right cares about weird stuff that is of little or no consequence.
Too many executive orders? Well, yes, until you see the facts. Too many vacations? Well, yes. Until you see the facts.
I just have to discount so many of those right wing complaints because I can see that nothing the guy will do will ever be good or right enough.