*promote the funny

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Friday, January 27th, 2017 10:25am PST - promote requested by eric3579.

Funny thing about the wall is, whenever border security goes up, the number of illegal immigrants increases in America because they know if they go back home it's a pain to cross back in. It's a counter-intuitive, but well-documented fact, look it up if you don't believe me.

100% right... the problem is the people who want 'the wall', are absolutely allergic to any form of fact that doesn't support their world view.

Except Trump will be long gone by the time the thing is done, it'll be the president after next who'll be looking at a giant rotting concrete mess with a monthly multi-billion upkeep fee..

No, the next president will halt construction immediately, assuming the construction ever actually starts, which it most likely will not.

One of the more sensible things Trump has talked about doing is to repair and expand infrastructure. The wall could fall under that heading, and potentially even be a semi-positive thing (at least sections of it).

Big public works and infrastructure projects helped bring the US out of the Great Depression. Big public works and infrastructure projects helped prevent an economic crash after WW2 finished and soldiers returned home.

The wall is somewhat racist/bigoted in motivation, but illegal immigration is a real issue with real, tangible, negative effects. Building or attempting to build the wall would/will create jobs. Manning, maintaining, and watching the wall would/will create more jobs. And while the wall couldn't ever prevent all or even most illegal immigration, it could make it harder or less convenient enough to encourage going through the correct channels and procedures to come in legally instead. Which would be a good thing. Overall, I think a project like the wall could have much greater long-term value than something like the TSA, which is a colossal waste of money that produces ZERO real benefits.


However, realistically I doubt that much will actually happen with the wall. Not very much will actually get built, and any that does will probably NOT be maintained by whoever the next president is. So, long-term benefits are likely nil. Obviously, I'd prefer that Trump spend more money on building/repairing infrastructure that actually will have long-term benefits -- the interstate system, dams and flood prevention systems, etc. But there is some potential for construction on the wall to actually be a good thing, even if it is never completed and/or maintained.

If he wants to add billions to welfare, better to just do that and not make a ridiculous jobs program wasting resources and alienating our neighbors and allies with no tangible benefit.
I'm all for repairing existing infrastructure first, plenty of jobs to me made there, and many more permanent ones if we actually do proper upkeep this time, but I see absolutely no need to create a new enormous piece of infrastructure mostly in the desert first, leaving nothing to pay for the rest and few willing to work there without ridiculous bonuses at taxpayer expense.
I wish Republicans (since they have the purse strings) who bemoan the state of the country, would put fixing it first.

I pretty much completely agree with you, but to play devil's advocate:

"Wasting resources and alienating our neighbors and allies with no tangible benefit." -- Stopping or even reducing illegal immigration would be a tangible benefit. I personally have no problems with immigrants, refugees, etc. coming in to the US, working (legally) and getting benefits like emergency and other health care, etc. But illegal / undocumented immigration can be a real problem.

I don't think the wall is a reasonable answer to that real problem, but it is part of the package that Trump sold to voters to get them to vote for him. As a result, he pretty much has to at least pretend like he's going to try to actually build it.


"I wish Republicans (since they have the purse strings) who bemoan the state of the country, would put fixing it first." -- A bunch of the people who voted for Trump consider illegal immigration to be a very important issue. Not all for racist reasons, either. Anyway, those people see the wall as Trump attempting to fix that issue -- something that other politicians haven't done.


I'd massively prefer Trump creating a giant jobs program by repairing interstates, railroads, and other transportation, building lots of solar and/or nuclear power plants to meet future demands with cleaner energy, etc. But Trump didn't run on those kinds of promises; one of the few concrete things he ran on was the border wall.


I really don't mean to defend the idea of a border wall, which I agree is extremely problematic for many many reasons. However, it wouldn't be the most egregious and pointless waste of taxpayer dollars. We spend *way* too much money on the Military-Industrial Complex, although that isn't entirely a waste (merely 75% wasteful ). And the TSA, which I mentioned in the previous post, is set to cost us $7.6 billion in 2017 alone -- half to a third of what people suggest the wall would cost to build in total. And the TSA sets the bar for pointless, in my opinion. Absolutely nothing of value would be lost if it was eliminated, and actual travel security would probably get better by simply reverting to how things worked before Bush inflicted it on us.

If the wall would stop, or even reduce illegal immigration, that would be a tangible benefit. Unfortunately, around half of illegals entered legally and just stayed, and it's fairly well proven that making border crossing more difficult just means fewer go back home, leading to more illegals, not fewer.

If illegal immigration from Mexico is a problem, the ONLY way to solve it is to make it easier to get a good job in Mexico than in America....ending NAFTA is going to increase it exponentially, building a wall is going to increase it, their plans to stop immigration are totally ass backwards. Edit: fining employers that hire them might help, but that's also totally off the table for Republicans, God forbid they take responsibility for their part in creating the problem.

Trump has no problem ignoring his promises, Mexico paying for the wall, for instance, off the table already, prosecuting Clinton, off the table. "Trump promised" is meaningless.

'It's useless, but not the worst waste of money we're guilty of' is hardly a reason to spend tens of billions on a project that hurts us internationally for little to no benefit, no? I would rather we try to end the worse abuses instead of creating new ones.