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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31570120
Four years after Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas would be the first state to build its own border wall, lawmakers have quietly stopped funding the project, leaving only scattered segments covering a small fraction of the border.
That decision, made in the waning hours of this year’s legislative session, leaves the future of the state wall unclear. Just 8% of the 805 miles the state identified for construction is complete, which has cost taxpayers more than $3 billion to date. The Texas Tribune reported last year that the wall is full of gaps that migrants and smugglers can easily walk around and mostly concentrated on sprawling ranches in rural areas, where illegal border crossings are less likely to occur.
State leaders suggested the federal government could pick up the effort. However, during President Donald Trump’s first term, when wall building was his top priority, his administration completed just 21 miles in Texas — about a third of what the state was able to build over the past four years.
The Tribune reported last year that the state’s wall program would take around 30 years and more than $20 billion to complete.
So some company got 3 billion richer by scamming the Texas government for a contract they knew would never be completed.
Nah, government wasn’t scammed. They got to rant, rave, and photo op. They made it a big deal, hyped their base, and got reelected. Their base already thinks the border wall is built. Or that it’s Bidens fault that it isn’t.
Some of those politicians may have made solid connections for their cozy retirement on some executive board
Sounds like an excellent ROI for everyone except the voters who wanted this product in the first place and the voters who didn’t want it at all. But hey, it’s quite a sight to see corrupt capitalism working…for itself.
You’re confusing politicians with the government, they’re two separate things.
not in Texas
They never cared about a physical wall. They only fell for the aesthetics of stability that fascism promised them. That’s why no story like this will ever sway a MAGA. This story is for liberals to point to and talk about at brunch with other libs.
Something to make them feel like their winning in the “marketplace of ideas”.
😱
They probably took alot of money but 64 miles of wall on the border is quite the build. Not 3 billion dollars worth though!
For context, the texas-Mexico border is 1254 miles long. Even the projected 805 miles never made sense (not that any of it makes sense).
It’s the most heavily crossed border in the world with dozens of controlled ports of entry and hundreds of millions of documented crossings a year.
The scattered 60ish miles they completed isn’t even laughable, it’s entirely a non starter, and this debacle would easily sink a governor in almost any other state.
It shouldn’t need funding, Mexico was supposed to pay for it.
That picture is fuckin hilarious if that’s literally as far as it got. It’s a perfect monument to the failure. Slap a plaque on it.
It’s a failure, yes, but they did complete 65 miles of fence. Just not all in one spot.
They basically built some free fences for a few ranchers who took advantage of the opportunity.
Well I guess that’s a glass half full? At least someone benefited from our wasted tax dollars to some extent.
At 50 million dollars a mile spent on shitty fences, I think we’re a long way from half-full.
At 65 out of 1254 miles, I think we’re a long way from half-fenced.
It’s fully half-assed
So stupid. They will just tunnel under a wall. Also walls do not block planes, which is where 90% of illegals come in. They buy a plane ticket, get here, and then just stay.
Well at least they destroyed another big swath of the environment.
Utter failure, that is the legacy of the Republican party
I mean, no shit. The goal was never the actual wall. The goal was what the wall represented. To be able to arrest, oppress, and “remove” any brown person they wanted.
We’re already at the Home Depot parking lot arrest and we’re not even 6 months in. If liberals keeps talking about the wall as if it’s a hypocrisy that will sway Trump supporters they’ll lose that battle.
It was never about a wall. It was about bringing fascism to America. And that wall is taller than anything Texas could ever build.
Please stop thinking you’ll fight fascism with liberal “gotchas” of hypocrisy. That’s far behind us. If you’re not on the streets with a sign then at least just keep your focus in the right place.
Focus on the HARM that is being done. Not some fake promise of a wall that no one ever cared about beyond the aesthetics and it’s symbolism.
Tell your parents about the nice guy are home depot that helped you move your couch. That got taken by ICE for just trying to make a living. These personal stories resonate with that generation.
But no one cares about a dumb ass wall. MAGA never did. And if you think they did you missed the the point and the appeal of Trump entirely.
You need a parade with “job well done” posters
“Mission Accomplished”
“Promises made, promises kept” is an actual thing they like to say to each other, LOL.
I’m sure the dim bulbs will tell each other this kind of thing even as donvict tHe pEaCe pReSiDeNt leads us into a war with Iran just because Israel tells him to…
Make sure the parade weaves back and forth through some of the gaps in the Texas/Mexico border wall.
But it was so important?
Billions of rapists and hyper-violent drugged out gang members are flooding over the border every second.
Does Texas not care about protecting their people? The country?
Or… was it all absolute fucking bullshit designed to funnel a few million dollars to one of Abbotts cohorts?
Is the “Mission Accomplished” banner from Bush’s tenure still available?
Hey, I smell a scam. What happened to all those billions that Mexico gave us to build that wall?!
Unreal how gullible republican voters can be despite having information readily available
Well a lot of their “ready” information is outright lies.
Multiple sources is so important.
Maybe I take it for granted but school hammered in how to get information properly for over a decade of my life.
It’s also wild that the older generation started my life telling me “don’t believe everything you see on tv”.
Now they believe everything on tv and the Internet. Makes no sense.
The quality of research done by people who advocate for “do your own research” is only as good as their education.
I have a friend who is my age, graduated college with me and likes to do his own research. I love the guy, but his ability to parse complex information is simply bad. He thinks that his own research on medical issues is superior to that of all doctors simply because he interprets what he reads in whatever way he wants it to mean. He never even tries to debunk anything.
I love the guy, and I’ve known him more than half my life now, but I have to simply humor him on medical advice.
How many college educations could have been fully funded for $3 billion? How many elementary schools built? How many other worthwhile problems could have been solved, rather than building a bunch of worthless crumbling garbage out in the desert?
It will always be a monument to the monumental failure of the Trump Admin.
Also Republicans as a whole since they were beating the drum for a border wall well before Trump ever joined their party.
