Politico’s Josh Gerstein provides them, and the first one is funny as hell
1. It’s so darn expensive
Costing more than $40 billion over 10 years, the “border surge†and fencing proposal is so expensive that it was virtually unthinkable just a week or two ago — until an unexpectedly generous scoring of the broader immigration bill by the Congressional Budget Office left the bill’s backers with a pot of cash (at least in budgeting terms) that could be used to sweeten the deal and get more Republicans on board.
Good grief. That’s a measly $4 billion a year to protect our borders, something that is actually mentioned in the Constitution. Government spent more than that on the worthless “green” parts of the Stimulus. Obama wasted $850 billion in the few years the stimulus was active.
Also mentioned are
- It’s Congressional micromanagement on steroids (hmm, I don’t remember this complaint regarding Obamacare, gun control, and Dodd-Frank, among others)
- The trigger isn’t as powerful as it seems at first blush (trigger? What trigger? They’re simply goals that the Sec Of DHS can waive)
- System to track foreigners will have big gaps (completely true, because Dems wanted this watered down)
- Tens of billions for the border, but little further away (in other words, forgetting about security for those that are already here)
Meanwhile, here’s more fun from Corker-Hoeven
Starting page 757, does make it a criminal offense, with jail time, for crossing illegally or being in the US illegally, along with civil penalties (fines). Kudos for that. But, we should simply fine them then kick them out, not pay to jail them.
You wouldn’t believe the number of times that the SecDHS can waive stuff, even for murderers, terrorists, and pedophiles.
On the plus side, entities which are legal sponsors of programs which bring visitors in will be responsible for keeping track of status and need to be bonded (starting page 849)
More later as I read through it.
