Lots of Democrats Voted for $40 Billion for the Wall and Better Border Security in 2006

[mikegriffith1]

Many Democrats are in a tizzy because Trump wants $25 billion to complete the wall. Yet, in 2006, 26 Senate Democrats voted to spend $40 billion to start the wall and to pay for more border patrol agents and equipment. Granted the wall they voted for was not as imposing as the one Trump wants (on some parts of the border), but it was a wall nonetheless, a 700-mile wall with barbed wire.

In 2006, These Democrats Still in Office Voted to Build a Wall

What exactly is the big deal with making it extremely difficult to cross our border illegally? Do liberals have a front door to their house or apartment? Do they ever lock it? Gee, why? Do they hate everyone outside their house?

 

[imawhosure]

Many Democrats are in a tizzy because Trump wants $25 billion to complete the wall. Yet, in 2006, 26 Senate Democrats voted to spend $40 billion to start the wall and to pay for more border patrol agents and equipment. Granted the wall they voted for was not as imposing as the one Trump wants (on some parts of the border), but it was a wall nonetheless, a 700-mile wall with barbed wire.

In 2006, These Democrats Still in Office Voted to Build a Wall

What exactly is the big deal with making it extremely difficult to cross our border illegally? Do liberals have a front door to their house or apartment? Do they ever lock it? Gee, why? Do they hate everyone outside their house?

What is the difference? Now the Democrats consider every illegal they can get here a new voter for them!

 

[theHawk]

Many Democrats are in a tizzy because Trump wants $25 billion to complete the wall. Yet, in 2006, 26 Senate Democrats voted to spend $40 billion to start the wall and to pay for more border patrol agents and equipment. Granted the wall they voted for was not as imposing as the one Trump wants (on some parts of the border), but it was a wall nonetheless, a 700-mile wall with barbed wire.

In 2006, These Democrats Still in Office Voted to Build a Wall

What exactly is the big deal with making it extremely difficult to cross our border illegally? Do liberals have a front door to their house or apartment? Do they ever lock it? Gee, why? Do they hate everyone outside their house?

It’s called hypocrisy.

 

[rightwinger]

Many Democrats are in a tizzy because Trump wants $25 billion to complete the wall. Yet, in 2006, 26 Senate Democrats voted to spend $40 billion to start the wall and to pay for more border patrol agents and equipment. Granted the wall they voted for was not as imposing as the one Trump wants (on some parts of the border), but it was a wall nonetheless, a 700-mile wall with barbed wire.

In 2006, These Democrats Still in Office Voted to Build a Wall

What exactly is the big deal with making it extremely difficult to cross our border illegally? Do liberals have a front door to their house or apartment? Do they ever lock it? Gee, why? Do they hate everyone outside their house?

We paid to put a wall in critical, vulnerable areas

Fat Donnie wants to do the whole border
We have better uses for our tax dollars

 

[imawhosure]

Many Democrats are in a tizzy because Trump wants $25 billion to complete the wall. Yet, in 2006, 26 Senate Democrats voted to spend $40 billion to start the wall and to pay for more border patrol agents and equipment. Granted the wall they voted for was not as imposing as the one Trump wants (on some parts of the border), but it was a wall nonetheless, a 700-mile wall with barbed wire.

In 2006, These Democrats Still in Office Voted to Build a Wall

What exactly is the big deal with making it extremely difficult to cross our border illegally? Do liberals have a front door to their house or apartment? Do they ever lock it? Gee, why? Do they hate everyone outside their house?

We paid to put a wall in critical, vulnerable areas

Fat Donnie wants to do the whole border
We have better uses for our tax dollars

LOLOLOL, so how did they get in then Karnak-) I know, they teleported! What a phony-baloney.

 

[JGalt]

Many Democrats are in a tizzy because Trump wants $25 billion to complete the wall. Yet, in 2006, 26 Senate Democrats voted to spend $40 billion to start the wall and to pay for more border patrol agents and equipment. Granted the wall they voted for was not as imposing as the one Trump wants (on some parts of the border), but it was a wall nonetheless, a 700-mile wall with barbed wire.

In 2006, These Democrats Still in Office Voted to Build a Wall

What exactly is the big deal with making it extremely difficult to cross our border illegally? Do liberals have a front door to their house or apartment? Do they ever lock it? Gee, why? Do they hate everyone outside their house?

We paid to put a wall in critical, vulnerable areas

Fat Donnie wants to do the whole border
We have better uses for our tax dollars

The wall the Democrats wanted to build was only for optics. Meanwhile they left the majority of the border wide open, as well as bringing in millions of Muslims.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

Many Democrats are in a tizzy because Trump wants $25 billion to complete the wall. Yet, in 2006, 26 Senate Democrats voted to spend $40 billion to start the wall and to pay for more border patrol agents and equipment. Granted the wall they voted for was not as imposing as the one Trump wants (on some parts of the border), but it was a wall nonetheless, a 700-mile wall with barbed wire.

In 2006, These Democrats Still in Office Voted to Build a Wall

What exactly is the big deal with making it extremely difficult to cross our border illegally? Do liberals have a front door to their house or apartment? Do they ever lock it? Gee, why? Do they hate everyone outside their house?

More fake news. The voted for a fence, not a wall.

 

[TheDude]

Yeah, but liberals are "progressive" (aka free-flowing narratives).

 

[usmbguest5318]

Many Democrats are in a tizzy because Trump wants $25 billion to complete the wall. Yet, in 2006, 26 Senate Democrats voted to spend $40 billion to start the wall and to pay for more border patrol agents and equipment. Granted the wall they voted for was not as imposing as the one Trump wants (on some parts of the border), but it was a wall nonetheless, a 700-mile wall with barbed wire.

In 2006, These Democrats Still in Office Voted to Build a Wall

What exactly is the big deal with making it extremely difficult to cross our border illegally? Do liberals have a front door to their house or apartment? Do they ever lock it? Gee, why? Do they hate everyone outside their house?

Congress, in 1196, first, AFAIK, appropriated federal/taxpayer funds to erect fencing on the Southern border. I don't know how much fencing was installed as a result. The second appropriation I know of was the 2006 one to which the OP refers. At the moment, there are some 900 or so miles of fencing.

I don't have a problem with there being a fence on the Southern border -- though I'm of the mind that a wall there, because of its opacity, is nuts, and I'm of the mind even proposing a wall is a clear indication of one's abjectly willful ignorance on the matter of border security and what is and is not a good idea for establishing and maintaining a cost-effective degree of inviolability for our Southern border. [1]

I have a problem with the assertion that more fencing than is there is, relative to what it will accomplish, somehow worth the money it'll cost to install and maintain it. I have a problem with that notion for several reasons:

• Trump and the DHS variously asserted that illegal crossings of our Southern border is down between 60% and 75%. Looking at the quantity of people that must, therefore, be attempting illegally to cross our Southern border, one who does so much as "back of a napkin" calculations finds that:
  • ~170,000 --> Number of people crossed illegally into the U.S. via the Southern border.
  • ~68,000 --> Number of people crossing the Southern border in 2017, assuming the 60% reduction Trump and the DHS claim is accurate and assuming that as many people crossed in 2016 as did in 2015.
  • $147058.82 --> The cost per illegal if we spend $10B to erect "Trump's Wall."
    
  • $264705.88 --> The cost per illegal if we spend $18B to erect "Trump's Wall."
• The cost per illegal deterred from crossing the Southern border because there's a wall or fence there is indirectly proportional to the quantity of illegals attempting to do so.
• The net impact on the U.S. economy (GDP) that is attributable to illegal immigrants/immigration is positive, that is, it adds to GDP and does not reduce it; however, the addition is but something between $400B and $470B. Consequently, reductions in illegal immigration must necessarily carry with them decrements to GDP.
  • Since when was less GDP a good thing for any country, let alone less GDP wrought by governmental expenditures of taxpayer money that has the sole purpose of eliminating or reducing a behavior that increases GDP?

I realize that illegal immigration is, well, illegal. That said, so is speeding, and just as it's absurd to spend tax money to apprehend and charge every speeder, similarly, not only is it absurd to bother trying to interdict every illegal immigrant, but also it is economically counterproductive to do so. Hell, at least the apprehension and penalization of speeders, at least a little bit, has some measure of offsetting revenue (fines). One cannot deport someone and then expect to collect one red cent from them, and keeping them in the U.S. incarcerated doesn't position them to earn enough money to even remotely offset the cost of finding, apprehending, feeding, sheltering, and transporting them out of the country.


Note:

1. While it's one thing for "regular" citizens to ascribe to the notion of building a wall on the Southern border. It's stupid/ignorant of them to do so, but one can imagine the they may never have given due consideration to the matter and therefore, at first blush, think it at least sounds good. It's utterly irresponsible for a person who would be POTUS to propose such a thing, even jokingly. It is because such a person is expected to have and demonstrate subject matter and general acumen well beyond that of "regular" citizens.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Many Democrats are in a tizzy because Trump wants $25 billion to complete the wall. Yet, in 2006, 26 Senate Democrats voted to spend $40 billion to start the wall and to pay for more border patrol agents and equipment. Granted the wall they voted for was not as imposing as the one Trump wants (on some parts of the border), but it was a wall nonetheless, a 700-mile wall with barbed wire.

In 2006, These Democrats Still in Office Voted to Build a Wall

What exactly is the big deal with making it extremely difficult to cross our border illegally? Do liberals have a front door to their house or apartment? Do they ever lock it? Gee, why? Do they hate everyone outside their house?

As the Kerry saying goes, they voted for the wall before they voted against it.