Even when “the government” tries, it fails. The Senate passed the Session’s Amendment to fund the construction of a border fence to help curtail illegal immigration and all the woes associated with it. But 2 BILLION dollars to construct nearly 900 miles of fence??? That is 2.2 MILLION dollars per mile.
A friend of mine over at Conservative Life blog helped build 9 miles fence on private land in Texas this spring. Double layer of chain link topped with razor wire AND motion sensors and cameras all for under $700,000. That is about $78,000 per mile. For every one mile the government builds private enterprise can build 28!
We need the border fence, no doubt about it. But instead of doing it in a bloated, bureaucratic manner why not ease many of the restrictions of building at the border? Allow private citizens to reclaim much of the land that is in government hands now and allow them to build the fences. There are many contractors and groups out there willing to do the work because they love this country. They will do it at cost, and they will do a much better job than government contractors loafing around to run up the costs overruns.
A fence is a very effective means of keeping people from going back and forth, Mr. President. Why not just ask the East Germans if a fence is good at handling that particular job.
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