So handing Joe $14 billion to secure the border, is in fact handing him $14 billion to open the border. That's seven times what President Trump asked for for the construction of a border wall, which actually would have secured the border
Funny how it costs more to open a border than build a wall
Back in the old days, when President Trump sought a piddly couple of billion to build a border wall, Democrats bellowed that it was too costly and America couldn't afford it.
My, my, how things have changed.
These days we learn that if shutting down an open border with a wall is costly, prising open a border wider for all illegal comers is even more costly, and I'm not talking about the lifetime of taxpayer-paid "services" illegal border crossers are going to be requiring once they get in.
Right now, Joe Biden is calling for $14 billion to "protect" the border, and blaming the GOP-controlled Congress for not giving it to him.
Congress has resisted all right, and Byron York has pointed out an interesting reason for that which hasn't gotten much attention:
Joe Biden has already been spending a lot of money on so-called border control.
According to York, in a Washington Examiner column:
In fiscal 2021, according to the report, Congress appropriated $4.869 billion for Border Patrol operations and southwest border surge funding. In fiscal 2022, that figure grew to $6.235 billion. In fiscal 2023, it grew to $7.153 billion. Altogether, that is a 47% increase in funding for the border during the Biden years. During that same time, the report notes, monthly encounters with illegal crossers at the border have grown from 163,043 in fiscal 2021 to 230,549 in fiscal 2022 to 266,762 in fiscal 2023. That is a 63% increase. And so far, in fiscal 2024, the number has jumped again, to 308,933.
So they've handed Biden billions after billions, raising the Border Patrol's budget by 47% in Biden's three years, but somehow ended up with a 63% increase in illegal border crossings through 2022 and probably more in 2023. More money, more illegal crossings, and it's not a one-to-one-ratio, it's exponentially higher on the migrant side the more cash that gets shoveled in.
We've seen this dynamic elsewhere -- the more money that gets spent on schools, the lower their outcomes in test scores and literacy. We've also seen that the more money that gets spent on homeless programs, the more homeless a city has. Economist Thomas Sowell has described that as having all the poverty you'd like to pay for, and this border crisis spending would definitely would go into that category.
After all, if Joe Biden had wanted to invest his own money on something with this kind of a return, he'd have a outperforming portfolio.
More money equals more illegal border crossings, basically because Joe spends that money on speedier migrant "processing," the way opening more checkout lines in a supermarket contributes to higher turnover.
York attributes it to the baseline of the problem which is policy:
The current catastrophe resulted from one act: Upon taking office, Biden signaled to the world that if you enter the United States illegally, you will be allowed to stay. Since then, millions have come — lowest estimate 6 million, and perhaps many more than that — and only a small portion has been turned away. That has created an enormous magnet to draw immigrants, nearly all of whom do not have a legitimate claim of asylum. It is a problem entirely of Biden's creation.
Biden blames much of the influx on poverty. Yes, lots of people in the poorer parts of the world would like to come to the U.S. for more money and a better life. But that has been true for a long time. What changed in January 2021 was that Biden opened the door — come, and you can stay.
Migrant satisfaction comes first. Actual border security contradicts the first purpose, so no border security.
So handing Joe $14 billion to secure the border, is in fact handing him $14 billion to open the border. That's seven times what President Trump asked for for the construction of a border wall, which actually would have secured the border
Is it too much to say that giving Joe Biden twice the money for border contol which is what he is asking for, might just double or triple the illegal border crossings now seen going on in the states?
It doesn't seem as though there could be any other outcome.
York notes that Republicans are onto this, which is a good thing.
Now, Johnson and his fellow House Republicans have prepared a report on how much money has already been spent on the border during the Biden years. The spending has been going up, up, up, and it just brings more illegal border crossers. "Congress has appropriated more funds, always beyond President Biden's budget requests, and seen record crossings at the border," the report says.
Now it's time for Republicans to get the word out about this disastrous spending to the voters.
Image: Bruce de Torres, via Flickr // public domain
Invasion Inversion: Turning America Upside-Down
Behold: It’s the leprechaun-logistics theory of magic migration that tells us hordes of clean, fed, and comfortably shod invading migrants miraculously and spontaneously appear at the America end of their personal rainbows, where they demand pots of U.S. taxpayer gold.
But with no backpacks to carry water, energy snacks, or even spare socks for their journey? Shoot, our children don’t go off to neighborhood elementary schools without backpacks full of supplies. So how is it these folks walk the 1,300-mile south-to-north expanse of Mexico, not to mention trekking from Central and South America, without backpacks?
Watching thousands of illegals daily pour across America’s southern border forces recognition that this mass invasion didn’t just pop out of the woodwork or happen organically. The magnitude and duration of this invasion demands answers to four core questions: 1) Who organizes these people? 2) Who provides water, food, and critical support for these hundreds of thousands of people? 3) Who arranges and distributes the go-to-this-enabler contact lists these invaders are given and then carry with them so they know with whom to connect when they step off free-pass buses and gratuitously ticketed airplanes? And 4) Who recruits, coordinates, and supports the many enablers named on these contact lists — located in cities across America — who connect the invaders with free-to-them services and unending support?
Media tell us that many invaders traveled far distances and have endured harrowing conditions. But they don’t look all that travel-worn. Any reader who has traveled in developing countries, especially in adventure-travel mode (ostensibly, walking through the Darien Gap and the length of Mexico qualifies) knows that it is a neat trick to keep self and clothes clean and body hydrated and nourished.
By absence of any mention, mainstream media imply that this is all organic. It’s all just happening. Relax, folks — there’s nothing hidden here. This faux non-explanation is not believable on its face. The big lie lives in all of this, and the big liars are journalists who don’t do their jobs and politicians who’ve been doing a job on America through the full spell of this invasion.
Now bring to this that “remittances from the U.S. given to Mexicans in Mexico reached a record $55.9 billion in 2022” and American “taxpayers could pay up to $451 billion to care for migrants who entered the US illegally.” This steals needed greenbacks from American household budgets.
How can largely unskilled and relatively uneducated migrants, who — thanks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its partners in Congress — often work under the table for less than minimum wage, manage to send to their families in Mexico an average $390 per month? Historian Victor Davis Hanson explains:
Much of this gifting is made possible by generous American state and federal subsidies to illegal aliens. Frequent subsidized housing, health care, legal assistance, education and food in the United States are often used to free up cash for illegals, who then send it to Mexico.
When trusted people and institutions repeatedly ignore the obvious, this breach of trust can induce confusion and self-doubt in the trusting person, which is the aim of gaslighting.
Consider four historical examples of media malfeasance — psy ops, really:
1) The Soviet Union, where its “enemies of the people” were forced to confess to crimes they had not committed — and the people acquiesced to Pravda’s promoted show trials.
2) Nazi Germany, whose propaganda machine targeted certain groups to justify persecution — and the people subscribed and consented.
3) North Korea, where Dear Leader uses the machinery of mass communication to shape and control the thoughts and beliefs of his people — and people weep and worship at the sight of him.
4) China, whose propaganda engine manipulated public opinion and suppressed dissent — and the people passively assented while tens of millions died.
Is national suicide America’s fate? If not, the necessary singular rallying point must be for rank-and-file Americans to resolve absolutely that America is for Americans, and beyond that, only for a measured number of legal immigrants and visa-holders, who must follow our laws and rules, speak intelligible English, embrace and support the American ethos, and have skills to sell on the legal labor market. Allowing anything less writes large that the American Experiment is failing, rapidly and irreversibly.
To turn this around, to save America, we the little people must clearly and forcefully communicate to political power players that they are to 1) stop all illegals from crossing our borders and 2) reverse the flow of illegal migration. Illegals now in America must return to their home countries or to other nations that accept them. America has reached the point where We the People must be heard and heeded.
This is winner-take-all. Either American citizens win or the invaders win. One political party supports this invasion. One political party allows this invasion. And your and my tolerating politicians’ wrong actions or their feckless inaction is killing Americans, especially paycheck-dependent working-class Americans.
There are four ways to force these fixes on our elected leaders and the administrative state to whom these leaders sell public trust.
The most difficult and critical one first, trite as it is: 1) Clean political house. Vote out career status quo–protectors, and vote in a nasty breed of mission-first hard-charging restorers of American sovereignty.
2) Post articles that critically challenge quick-buck media channels — as I have done here — to uncover and broadcast truth.
3) Publish open letters to named journalists and policy experts respectfully, if sharply, demanding answers to the four questions presented at the top of this article.
4) Ask wealthy conservatives to set up and support multiple teams of skilled, honest, and fearless investigators to find answers to the four core questions and others that emerge from their deep investigations.
The Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus taught his students that words and theory without action are meaningless. This article is this Stoic’s action. Now it could be your turn to act, for history is showing that this is America’s “Stand or Die” order.
Greg Moo is a former high school principal, Alaskan commercial fisherman, college teacher, certified all-position welder, organization development consultant, and author of articles and a still relevant old book.
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