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Most Americans would rather spend the $5 billion Trump is demanding for the border wall on infrastructure, education, or healthcare

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Category: News & Politics

Via: don-overton • 6 years ago • 6 comments

Most Americans would rather spend the $5 billion Trump is demanding for the border wall on infrastructure, education, or healthcare

As the partial government shutdown drags on into its sixth day, President Donald Trump has remained steadfast in his demands that $5 billion for a wall along the US-Mexico border be included in any package to funding and reopening the government.

S E E D E D C O N T E N T

"Have the Democrats finally realized that we desperately need Border Security and a Wall on the Southern Border," Trump tweeted Thursday. "Need to stop Drugs, Human Trafficking, Gang Members & Criminals from coming into our Country."

But according to an INSIDER poll, most Americans would prefer to put the $5 billion Trump is demanding toward other policy goals.

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Sophomore Participates

1 Galen Marvin Ross 6 years ago

Couldn't agree more.

Professor Guide

2 MrFrost 6 years ago

Why doesn't he ask Mexico for the funding? I mean he did say they were paying for it.

5 billion would go a long ways to feeding the poor....but then so would donny cutting back on his constant golf trips that cost tax payers 80+ million dollars.

Junior Silent

3 tomwcraig 6 years ago

You know, $5 billion is less than Congress spent in 2007 for all of their pork barrel spending:

Q: What percentage of the national spending is pork?
A: About 1 percent.
FULL ANSWER

Pork-barrel spending is funding allocated for legislators’ pet projects, often without public hearings or a request from the president. Citizens Against Government Waste, an anti-pork watchdog group, estimated that pork projects cost $29 billion in 2006. (CAGW defines “pork” as “a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures.”) The Office of Management and Budget’s historical tables show a federal outlay of $2.66 trillion that year, so pork would represent 1.1 percent of the total spending. In 2005, CAGW identified 13,997 projects costing $27.3 billion that met its definition of pork spending; as in 2006, that was about 1.1 percent of total spending. Most pork spending comes in the form of “earmarks,” which are items inserted in federal spending bills at the specific request of a House or Senate member. For 2005, the OMB offered a tally of 13,492 “earmarks” costing $18.9 billion out of $2.47 trillion in outlays, or about 0.77 percent of total federal spending. But earmarks aren’t the only form of pork. For example, CAGW counts as pork any spending project that isn’t requested by the administration and also isn’t awarded through competition. Hundreds of spending items meet CAGW’s definition even though they are not earmarks.

So, why are we more interested in spending money on pork than on shoring up this country's border? We can easily cancel all of these projects and end their funding to transfer it to building the wall. This is nowhere near any significant amount that would be used on infrastructure, so that is a red herring.

Professor Quiet

4 Sunshine 6 years ago

Gee, why don't we take the cost of the wall and factor the annual cost of illegal immigration to the taxpayers over the life of the wall and spend the savings on healthcare, education, etc.

Professor Participates

5 Thrawn 31 6 years ago

Waste of money, good thing it will never actually be built.

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