Donald Trump’s border wall hits budget woes

The bean counters are registering their own disapproval of President Trump’s border wall, saying the cost alone makes it a bad idea.

Taxpayers for Common Sense called it a “Wall of Waste,” and said it won’t solve much of the illegal immigration problem.

“Putting this expensive wall on the U.S. credit card not only doesn’t make sense, it’s nuts,” the group said.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget didn’t criticize the wall itself, but said it feared the way it would be paid for. The CRFB insisted the wall’s costs be paid for up front, rather than spread out over 10 years, as Congress often does with one-time spending.

“If the wall isn’t paid for, the $12 billion to $15 billion added the debt comes out to $95 to $120 per U.S. household,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the CRFB. “Any border wall should be fully paid for in the same legislation that spends the funds, either through other spending cuts or revenue increases.”

The costs of the wall are purely speculative at this point, since Mr. Trump and his aides have given varying — and occasionally conflicting — descriptions of what materials the wall would be built out of, how much of the border would be covered and how high it would run.

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Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he would soak Mexico for the cost.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said this week that one leading option is to siphon money from the House GOP’s plans to impose a border adjustment tax, which would impose a 20 percent tax on imports as part of a broad corporate tax overhaul.

But congressional leaders were counting on that money to help even out tax rates, not to be used for the wall. And Mr. Trump himself had been critical of the adjustment tax, saying it was too complicated.

The White House seemed to back off its embrace of the idea late Thursday, saying the tax was only one of a number of ideas.