NEWS AND OPINION:
Yes, the 2,232-page, $1.3 trillion “omnibus” spending bill is as big as a bus. It is not the first jumbo-sized bill to roll through Capitol Hill and it won’t be the last. Meanwhile, the jury is still out on whether President Trump got his wish for a “big, beautiful wall” on the southwestern U.S. border, the details of which begin on page 673 of the legislation. Ever-helpful House Majority Whip Steve Scalise offered his own summary of the funding, which totals $1.571 billion for border assets and infrastructure.
His terse breakdown: “25 miles of new levee wall in Texas ($445 million), eight miles of new bollard wall in Texas ($196 million), 63 miles of pedestrian replacement wall to include 14 miles in California ($696 million) and $196 million in border technology; $655.6 million for border and port technology, surveillance systems, opioid detection, and a National Targeting Center.”
Some have put the spending in context.
Terence P. Jeffrey, editor-in-chief of CNSNews.com, reviewed Congressional Budget Office numbers to find that Mr. Trump’s initial request for funding equals less than the Department of Health and Human Services spends in just 12 hours and less than the Treasury collects in taxes in four hours. Mr. Jeffrey updated his study to include Mr. Trump’s grander proposal to spend $18 billion in the next decade on the border wall.
“That $18 billion would equal just 0.0338 percent of the $53.128 trillion the Congressional Budget Office currently estimates the federal government will spend over that same 10-year period,” Mr. Jeffrey noted in January.
On another front, the Federation for American Immigration Reform — FAIR — compared the total price tag of the wall to the overall cost of caring for or managing America’s illegal immigrants.
“Securing the southern border is a sound fiscal investment. The overall construction and annual maintenance costs pale when compared to the $113 billion FAIR estimates illegal immigration costs American taxpayers,” the organization said in its own study, released in 2017.
The organization is not happy about the latest legislation, however.
“It contains a paltry $1.6 billion for repairs, drones, and pedestrian fencing — no wall construction. Even worse, the measure explicitly restricts funding for any of President Trump’s border wall prototypes, only allowing spending for designs deployed before the prototypes were constructed. If Congressional leadership told the president he was getting money for his signature campaign promise, he was lied to,” says Dan Stein, the group’s president.
REPUBLICANS STILL STAND BY TRUMP ECONOMY
“Americans’ views of national economic conditions continue to improve, with the share saying the economy is in good or excellent condition now at its highest point in nearly two decades,” says a new Pew Research Center survey.
“The overall rise in positive assessments seen over the last year is driven by the shifting views of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Nearly three-quarters of Republicans (74 percent) now view the economy in positive terms. That is a marked improvement from last October (57 percent). In December 2016, shortly after the presidential election, just 14 percent of Republicans rated the economy as excellent or good,” the pollster says. “By contrast, just 37 percent of Democrats say the economy is in excellent or good shape. This is modestly higher than last fall (when 30 percent said this), but lower than the 46 percent who said this in December 2016.”
Meanwhile, 62 percent of Republicans say their personal financial situation is in excellent or good shape, compared to 44 percent of Democrats.
“GOP views have improved substantially since Donald Trump’s election. Democratic views have changed little following the shift in administration,” the poll says.
TURN ON THE LIGHTS
Other things are scheduled for Saturday besides the gun control march. It’s time to celebrate “Human Achievement Hour” at precisely 8:30 p.m. Saturday, as a “tribute to human ingenuity, affordable energy, and the freedom to create and innovate,” according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit, public policy organization.
“Human Achievement Hour challenges people to celebrate human ingenuity and our ability to solve problems creatively,” Kent Lassman, the organization’s president. “These achievements make life better for billions of people around the world every day — from life expectancy and disease treatment to literacy rates and increased employment.”
It’s OK to celebrate technology and power grids, in other words.
“Some environmental activists view mankind as a plague upon an otherwise pristine and virtuous planet, calling for a smaller human population, limits on energy use, and government restrictions on valuable new technology. Rather than putting a vibrant economy and human know-how to use, we hear fearmongering about living in a resource-constrained world,” the organizers point out.
Their hour of recognition was originally launched as an alternative to “Earth Hour,” an activist campaign that asks people to turn off their lights for an hour to show concern for climate change. Human Achievement Hour calls for lights on, and then some. Visit CEI.org for the particulars.
WEEKEND REAL ESTATE
For sale: The Mansel Alcock Homestead, built in 1820 on 14 acres in Hancock Village, New Hampshire. Five bedrooms, five baths, “exquisitely maintained” traditional clapboard Colonial home; 4,778 square feet. Includes original woodwork, exposed beams, completely updated country kitchen with breakfast room, six fireplaces, three-car garage. Surrounded by woodlands, near beach. Property includes three-level barn with attached two-bedroom guest house overseeing Norwich Pond. Priced at $795,000 through PetersonRealEstate.com; find the home here.
POLL DU JOUR
• 67 percent of likely U.S. voters agree that “we need to ’Keep America Great’”; 93 percent of Republicans, 67 percent of independents and 43 percent of Democrats agree.
• 48 percent overall want to “change direction and move away” from former President Barack Obama’s policies; 84 percent of Republicans, 52 percent of independents and 12 percent of Democrats agree.
• 46 percent overall approve of the job President Trump is doing; 83 percent of Republicans, 44 percent of independents and 15 percent of Democrats agree.
• 38 percent overall say the nation is moving in the right direction; 70 percent of Republicans, 32 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats agree.
Source: A McLaughlin & Associates/Media Research Center poll of 1,000 likely U.S. voters conducted March 14-19.
• Kindly follow Jennifer Harper on Twitter @HarperBulletin
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.
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