I for one am not even astonished that the Congress is looking to fund the president-elect’s “wall.”  So what if the man said that “Mexico will pay for it”?  Apparently nothing he said on the campaign trail matters.^[1]

It also doesn’t seem to matter that the party of “fiscal responsibility” and “small government” now wants to jumpstart the biggest boondoggle since the Iraq war.

But I do have some questions for my elected representatives.

• Does the congressman have data (in the form of research studies or reports) on the effectiveness of a “wall” in keeping migrant workers from entering the country from Mexico?  Can you provide me with a link to any of those?
• Does the congressman have data (in the form of research studies or reports) on the impact on employment/wages in this country if low-wage migrant workers are excluded from the economy?  What are his plans to prevent wage inflation if the country loses access to these workers?
• Has the congressman weighed the opportunity costs between building the “wall” and investing in the country’s infrastructure?  In other words, given our limited resources, is it going to be a better strategy to insure our economic future to build the wall rather than to repair our bridges, roads, and airports?

Or, bluntly, is the congressman’s vote based purely on the symbolic vindictiveness that seems to characterize his party?

—————

^[1] It doesn’t matter because the only thing that matters to the Republicker party is that they now have a patsy in the White House.