Trump's wall is a wasteful, unnecessary, and expensive boondoggle

President Donald Trump has been in the White House for 49 days now. In this brief - but seemingly endless - span of time, not only has Mr. Trump set a record for Presidential unpopularity - since his Inauguration, his approval ratings have not gone much higher than 43%. This shouldn't be terribly surprising, except maybe to his faithful core of supporters; according to the Financial Times, Mr. Trump began his term as the most unpopular incoming President since the 1940s.

Mr. Trump is also, unfortunately for the United States of America, the most dishonest President in modern American history. He has lied constantly since his inauguration across a wide spectrum of topics, including the size of the crowds at his swearing in ceremony, his divestment from his businesses, his promise to not play golf or take vacations because "there was too much work to do," his "non-existent" connections to Russia, his pledge to complete the controversial Keystone pipeline using only American steel, and his Nixon-like claim that President Obama bugged his offices at the Trump Tower during the 2016 election.

Among Mr. Trump's cornucopia of lies was that when (not if) he ordered the construction of the nearly 1,900-mile long wall along the Mexican border, the Mexican government would pay the $21.6 billion cost.

Mexico's President, Enrique Pena Nieto, has reiterated that his government will not, repeat, not pay for Mr. Trump's infamous wall. He said so before Mr. Trump took office on January 20; he repeated his assertion in a nationally-televised speech to the Mexican people five days later.

So, if Mexico will not pay for Trump's Great Wall of the Border, who will?

The American taxpayer, that's who.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) confirmed it in an interview yesterday with the influential news organization Politico.

According to an article by NBC News' Marissa Armas, Politico Playbook's Jake Sherman asked Sen. McConnell "Do you believe that Mexico will pay for it [the border wall]?"

McConnell said, "Uh, no."

As we said yesterday, To pay for the infamous "wall" on the U.S.-Mexico border that Mexico definitely will not pay for, the White House is considering massive cuts to various federal agencies. According to various sources, including ABC News and the military-oriented website DoD Buzz, the President's budget blueprint "outlines a $1.3 billion overall cut to the Coast Guard’s budget, equivalent to 14 percent of the agency’s funding last year. The draft would cut funding for Maritime Security Response Teams and scuttled a contract for a new cutter for the Coast Guard fleet.

Mr. Trump has conjured up nightmare scenarios in which hordes of Mexican immigrants cross the border at will to steal jobs from American workers whose jobs were whisked overseas by free trade deals such as NAFTA. He also claimed, infamously, that most of these invaders were "bad hombres" who commit murders, sell drugs, and go around raping innocent victims at will. 

What Mr. Trump doesn't tell his supporters is that immigration from Mexico has decreased over the past few years. Per the Pew Research Center:

The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill. After four decades that brought 12 million current immigrants—most of whom came illegally—the net migration flow from Mexico to the United States has stopped and may have reversed, according to a new analysis of government data from both countries by the Pew Hispanic Center.

According to a related article in Salon, Mr. Trump's border wall is unnecessary and expensive. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes:

There’s no reason for the wall anyway because undocumented migration from Mexico has sharply declined.  The Department of Homeland Security’s estimates that the total undocumented population peaked at 12 million in 2008, and has fallen since then. According to the Pew Research Center, the overall flow of Mexican immigrants between the two countries is at its smallest since the 1990s. The number of apprehensions at the border is at its lowest since 1973.

Reich also reiterates what many experts from both parties have said about the wall's cost - it will be expensive. 

The cost of Trump’s fence would be a whopping $25 billion.... That’s the best estimate I’ve seen by a Washington Post fact checker. (When Trump discussed the cost last February he put it at $8 billion, then a few weeks later upped the cost to $10 to 12 billion. ) 

Even if we go by the smaller $21 billion figure that has been bandied about in recent days, this is still too much money to spend on a wasteful and unnecessary project that will make America less safe due to budget cuts to the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, FEMA, and other agencies tasked with homeland security, law enforcement, and emergency first response. 

Sources:

https://www.ft.com/content/3e843ab8-de9c-11e6-9d7c-be108f1c1dce

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/mcconnell-mexico-paying-trump-s-wall-uh-no-n731266

http://fardreamersblog.blogspot.com/2017/03/tales-from-trumps-washington-to-pay-for.html?spref=fb

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/

http://www.salon.com/2017/01/18/trumps-border-wall_partner/

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-border-wall-politics-235904