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”.
Trumpanomics
No, I’m pretty sure people got paid here.
Probably a close personal friend or family of Paxton or Abbott
😱
They probably took alot of money but 64 miles of wall on the border is quite the build. Not 3 billion dollars worth though!
i’ll never forget all the inbred bumpkin morons who were 100% convinced that “mexico’s gonna pay for it”
And now those same bumpkins are saying originating countries “are gonna pay for the tariffs”.
Haitians eating cats and dogs really lowered the bar for conservatives. Like it was low, and then that dropped and there were no more excuses for them in my mind.
I remember thinking Bowling Green was pretty low, but they just kept digging.
American Nazis are destined for failure.
The faster they fail and we hold them accountable for their crimes the fewer crimes they are able to commit.
Don’t lose hope. We’ll see most of these assholes swinging in the breeze.
I like your style, Dude.
I like yours too man, you got the whole cowboy thing going on
I just hope that midterms cause a huge shift in Congress, and the next “leader” has the balls to have a Nuremberg trials like situation to hold the current admin accountable. I want heads to literally and figuratively roll.
I am a bit concerned about more election manipulation. The recent story on the 2024 elections and that there might’ve been some fuckery that is a bit more deeply advanced and nuanced than we’ve seen before has me worried. I have mad respect for the Russian apparatus’ technical abilities even though they are awful people. Despite hating what they are doing, they push the envelope of what (bad) hacking can do. Traitors in the admin are doing what they can to assist so they have help.
I’m not not concerned. I just hope that something good does happen.
It’s hard to swing when you don’t have a neck, but I guess we can make it work somehow
I suggest deep-frying them.
🤞🤞
Destruction is the point. It’s a success.
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.
The cognitive disonnence is staggering.
Maybe they meant like Mexico NY? Or New Mexico? Maybe he said Texaco?
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
Utter failure, that is the legacy of the Republican party
No need for it now. America is so shit nobody wants to go there.
Be Mexico building the wall soon to keep Texans out.
Mexico building the wall soon
So Trump is keeping promises?
Well at least they destroyed another big swath of the environment.
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.
I mean, ladders exist too. What a bunch of idiots. Americans are drooling stupid.
So what happened to the $77 billion left to build the wall? Oh, they griffed it. Just like everything the Donvict makes, it goes to shit and he runs off with the money. Suddenly there’s no more immigrant crisis on the Texas border. Clearly it wasn’t the fucking wall that stopped it. Also, all that imminent domain claimed on farmers and habitat owners also just had their land completely stolen not for “imminent domain” purposes.
His next term is in 2026. That’s right, he’s going for a 20 year tenure. There is not a limit on how many times you can be a Texas governor.
Is the “Mission Accomplished” banner from Bush’s tenure still available?
they should put a “Mission Accomplished” sign on it.
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.
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?
Yeah, but that would be, like, helping people man.
Bootstraps motherfuckers!
