So what is the right solution to the “Border Crisis“?
Every president since Bush senior has declared there is a border crisis, but it wasn’t until Trump took office that it became “inhumane” to detain illegal aliens. Even though we have been doing that all along and under worse living conditions than now.
If there were a physical barrier along those long stretches between entry ports along our southern border, the current Border Patrol personnel could handle the load instead of combing the desert using half million dollar thermal imaging devices and desert patrol vehicles.
But Nancy wants 30.000 additional people (times 40,000 to 60,000 dollars per year while working ($1,350,000,000) plus a retirement level equal to say 10 or 12 thousand a year) equipped with super high tech desert patrol vehicles.
Just how fast will that add up to the cost of the barrier? Maybe 10 years. Maybe. More like 8 or even 6. But once they are on the government payroll, the bureaucracy won’t let them go, so no matter how much illegal or legal immigration falls off, those additional government employees billets will never go away. Bureaucracies simply don’t work like that.
Oh, and I almost forgot, the $1.35 Billion per year is just the straight wages
and does not include the overhead rates (yes, gov’t activities charge an overhead rate). Without looking up the exact rate for each locality (yes, they vary), I could make a very conservative guess that the rate (that includes the wages paid) would be something over a hundred dollars per labor hour. If each new agent worked full time with out any over time (yeah, right), that would be 2,080 hours times 100 dollars per hour times 30,000. (drum roll, please) that comes out at $6.24 Billion in the first year. Yes, that’s over a half a billion dollars more in the first year for labor alone than Trump requested in the first year.for a permanent one time, (non recurring cost) physical barrier.
Now, take that times a 30 year career for each of those 30,000 employees: $187.2 Billion dollars for labor alone, without folding in cost of living allowances (COLA). Shall I do the math for the “hi tech barrier” that will be better and “more humane”? Did I mention that the hi tech desert patrol vehicles outfitted with all the gizmos and dodads cost in excess of half a million dollars each and that those thirty thousand additional agents will be 2 to a vehicle? If the current work force of 21,000 also get those sweet rides, then that’s another bunch of overpriced hardware. Oh wait, I guess I already did that math: $12.75 Billion, and I assure you they will be top heavy and will roll over killing some of those agents just as the HMMVV’s did in Iraq and Afghanistan, just costing way more up front. And they will have to be replaced as soon the contractor supplying them needs a shot in the arm or there is some “upgrade” available.
And then there are the drones that Nancy wants to use to patrol the border. The ones she has in mind are very much like the ones we use to kill terrorists, but they will be flying over our own cities.
That is Nancy Petrotski’s solution. And it sucks. It will not address the problems of the Border crisis
Please build that wall and double the capacity to process immigrants at the ports of entry and triple the potential to deport those who choose to ignore the law.
