“The administration recently provided updated information to Congress on the status of its efforts as of April 30, 2019,” the attorney, Douglas Letter, said in a court filing. “Based on that updated information, it appears that CBP has now constructed 1.7 miles of fencing with its fiscal year 2018 funding.”
Well now we know what the latest price numbers are. Almost $1B per mile. And Trump has said he wants $5.7B to build 234 miles of wall.
Do supporters of the wall really think this is a good use of taxpayer money based on these new figures?
And how the hell does any government agency and/or contractor justify this kind of expense?
A billion dollars per mile of additional fencing is money well spent, I say. This is the only thing that will work to keep asylum seekers out of the country.
Not a valid comparison. You are comparing a unique part of a whole to a common part of a whole. More apt comparison would be an order of 100 cars and the first car cost 20k.
If we just imported more Central and South Americans to build the wall, the labor rate would go down and the wall to keep out Central and South Americans would get less expensive.
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Do we know that the entire 2018 appropriation was used to construct the 1.7 miles of fencing?
Your link doesn’t say that but that’s what the link, and you, imply.
I can buy the material for a mile of 30 foot tall steel plate fencing like one of the sample walls I saw, including concrete and rebar for about six to eight million dollars and that’s a bit generous on the concrete but what the hell, it’s a govt. job. I’ve put up enough structural steel buildings and highway bridges and done enough industrial concrete to have a pretty darn good idea what all goes into that fence. To go even more generous on materials and govt. red tape let’s double that with a good cushion for profit and say twenty million for materials. That is very realistic.
An entire two lane interstate highway with a raised bed costs about thirty million dollars per mile which seems to me a similar volume of site work. But it’s the govt. so I’ll double it to sixty million a mile for site work. That brings us to eighty million a mile for materials, labor and machinery.
Oh hell, let’s double that just for fun because we know that’s what the contractors will do and rightfully so when the federal govt. is involved, they are almost impossible to work for on big projects and we are still at only 160 million dollars per mile and that is a friggin ripoff, but that’s what we’ll get in the real world.
Land acquisition is what we are left with and even if they took an entire mile wide swath you can’t get over 25 million per mile and that is for suburban residential prices.
185 million dollars a mile at total ripoff rates is about what I can come up with LOL and I do have some expertise in the field. I wouldn’t call it right up my alley, but I could run a job like that, I do have the requisite experience. The first mile costs the most of course, but not eight times as much at the rest of them. It’s a ripoff of such grand proportions as to boggle the mind of even the most dishonest of contractors.
MAGA!!!
WINNING!!!
BUILD THE WALL!!!
BUILD THE WALL!!!
BUILD THE WALL!!!
All jokes aside, how much worst can this get? It’s like we’re pissing away the things that truly has made this country great just to keep people of color from entering. Fear is a powerful weapon.
Seriously what ■■■■■■■ thought this man was good with money and plans?
Who? Someone? Anyone? You could have put ankle monitors on every single immigrant seeking asylum here for 1.37 400 times over and still would have costs less…
But noooo the party of fiscal responsibility decided they wanted to take a dive off the deep end in a empty pool.
The point is: what amount of fence was that contract for 1.7bil for? The amount that has been installed to date doesn’t really matter at this point. The question is how much did it pay for.
