$5 billion for border wall is 'dust' in a $4 trillion budget

To The Daily Sun,

I was watching the news when Senator Schumer and Congresswoman Pelosi were arguing with President Trump on border security. I watched as they repeated over and over again how they were “concerned” about the safety of the American public but refused to give an inch on funding for a border wall. The argument that everything is just fine on the border is true only if you want illegal immigration to continue unabated. As soon as the meeting was over, they were in front of the media smugly saying any shutdown will be Trump’s fault. Really? Wouldn’t a shutdown be averted if the Senate upped the funding for the border wall to $5 billion?

Let me put this into perspective. The President is asking for $5,000,000,000 out of a $4,000,000,000,000 budget. Let’s drop nine zeros and look at it again. The president is asking for $5 dollars out of $4,000. Still too big to grasp? Drop another two zeros and it becomes five cents out of $40. And what are the Democrats willing to pony up? One point three cents.

The number one purpose of the federal government is to protect the American citizens and the Democrats will not invest 5 cents out of every $40 they take in to secure our southern border because the government can’t afford it. It makes absolutely no sense because once illegal immigrants get across the border, they incur other costs.

I spent more time researching those costs in this letter than any other I’ve written. I was overwhelmed with the varying totals. I use https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/politifact/ to check on the political bias. I selected this article from PolitiFact because they are rated as close to non-biased as any. (https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/01/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-illegal-immigration-costs-113-bi/) They basically rated Trump’s claim that illegal immigrants cost the U.S. $113 billion per year as “mostly false.” I was unimpressed with their method of debunking. The two key points that made sense to me were first that the illegal immigrants contribute about $14 billion in taxes so the net cost to the country would be closer to $99 billion. I can believe that despite lack of any source data. Second was that the report used 13 million illegal immigrants in this country and homeland security estimated that number closer to 11.4 million. Some quick math $99 billion x 11.4/13=$86.8 billion. This is still 17 times what the president is requesting and remember the $86.7 billion is an ANNUAL cost.

This is just another example of the Democrats and a complicit media spinning a story to make something that is wrong at its core and turning it upside down. No one in the left even questions if $1.3 billion is enough to curb illegal immigration. This is my biggest frustrations with the left. Whenever they can’t win an argument on the basis of cost verses results, they shift the talking points to personal attacks and character assassinations. This article from Froma Harrop, a syndicated columnist from RI appeared in the LDS after the exchange. (https://www.laconiadailysun.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/froma-harrop---a-new-york-discussion/article_f4a60a74-fe43-11e8-9516-27a69b154640.html) This was a full column accusing Trump of being “wrong” and not once was money mentioned or the fact that the situation at our southern border is a disaster and he’s trying to fix it.

This is par for the course on the left. They did it with Obamacare by promising families a $2,500/year savings and now the average working family is paying thousands more per year. Also, they continue to deny that the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act would shift the tax burden from the working poor to the rich. And finally, I don’t ever recall reading a letter to the editor in the LDS from those on the left “acknowledging” that the previous administration added $10 trillion more to the national debt. To think Democrats and a complicit media are opposing the border wall to save the government money is ridiculous.

My personal “perception” is the reason Senator Schumer and Congresswoman Pelosi are against funding the border wall is to deny President Trump another win. Here is a link to his major accomplishments in 2017. (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trumps-top-9-accomplishments-of-2017) They include judicial appointments, tax reform, individual mandate repeal, deregulation, cutting government waste, travel ban, defeating the Islamic state, recognition of Jerusalem, withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. Adding fixing illegal immigration would more than likely set him up for another term and they would rather see this country fail than allow that. They see this as a bad situation they created that they can turn to their advantage with a complicit media by blaming it on president Trump despite the fact he’s willing to take a stand to fix this problem now.

I have written several letters pointing out how Democrats focus on the rhetoric rather than the results and will add this one to the list. Five billion dollars is “dust” in a $4 trillion budget. Don’t ignore the left’s omission of how the current immigration laws are failing this country and how much it costs. Don’t let the left get away with it or we will all be paying the price for decades to come. I wrote Senators Hassen and Shaheen and asked them to vote for the $5 billion funding for border security that president Trump is requesting. I hope you do also.

Bruce Jenket

Moultonborough