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.
Hey, I smell a scam. What happened to all those billions that Mexico gave us to build that wall?!
But it was so important?
Billions of rapists and hyper-violent drugged out gang members are flooding over the border every second.
Does Texas not care about protecting their people? The country?
Or… was it all absolute fucking bullshit designed to funnel a few million dollars to one of Abbotts cohorts?
Next time I need scrap metal for a project, I know where to go.
TACO
I mean, no shit. The goal was never the actual wall. The goal was what the wall represented. To be able to arrest, oppress, and “remove” any brown person they wanted.
We’re already at the Home Depot parking lot arrest and we’re not even 6 months in. If liberals keeps talking about the wall as if it’s a hypocrisy that will sway Trump supporters they’ll lose that battle.
It was never about a wall. It was about bringing fascism to America. And that wall is taller than anything Texas could ever build.
Please stop thinking you’ll fight fascism with liberal “gotchas” of hypocrisy. That’s far behind us. If you’re not on the streets with a sign then at least just keep your focus in the right place.
Focus on the HARM that is being done. Not some fake promise of a wall that no one ever cared about beyond the aesthetics and it’s symbolism.
Tell your parents about the nice guy are home depot that helped you move your couch. That got taken by ICE for just trying to make a living. These personal stories resonate with that generation.
But no one cares about a dumb ass wall. MAGA never did. And if you think they did you missed the the point and the appeal of Trump entirely.
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.
He’s too popular. Precisely because he brought $77B into the state to line his friends’ pockets.
Who is going to run against Abbott that isn’t just a more Fash version of him? Any Democrat that runs will campaign on “Actually I always supported the wall and I’m upset he didn’t build it fast enough”. Any Republican in the primaries will complain that Abbott is too nice to Jews.
And then every newspaper and TV channel in the state will endorse him, because that’s what their sponsors told them to do. The state will split 46/54, with a weird 40,000 vote undercount in Harris County and six counties in the Panhandle voting GOP to a man. And he’ll be in for another four years while the Green Party gets blamed for another liberal defeat.
Any Democrat that runs will campaign on “Actually I always supported the wall and I’m upset he didn’t build it fast enough”.
Maybe they should try not being an idiot.
Sorry, I hired a political consultant at $12,000/hr and he told me voters will only support idiots.
Besides, we need to do something as a party to distance ourselves from Muslims, Women, PoC, and the LGBTQ community. They’re holding us back and scaring off all the white male social media millionaires!
I see your argument, but having an opposing candidate that can read the room may significantly increase chances of victory. Of course, victory is a very fleeting concept for democrats.
having an opposing candidate that can read the room may significantly increase chances of victory
Only in a large-turnout neck-and-neck general election, where the game actually is about who can deliver the right mix of popular red meat and inoffensive centrism.
In the more local races where the game is 90% getting name recognition, you don’t need to read the room of voters. You need to court the donor pool that will endlessly and enthusiastically promote you. Go look at the NYC Mayoral race. One reason Cuomo has been the favorite to win since Day 1 - despite being a well-established sleazeball, DINO, and sex pest - is the 24/7/365 friendly media coverage.
Zohran’s recent surge in support has come thanks to tons and tons of grassroots activists screaming his name at the top of their lungs. And the debates proved he’s masterful at reading the crowd, focusing on the popular issues, deflecting criticism, and engaging a wide audience. But it’s still an uphill climb against a guy whose family name has echoed through NY politics for nearly a century. Cuomo can shit the bed every day for a month and still never dip below 40% favorability, purely thanks to political inertia.
Just buying celebrity friendships is enough to keep Cuomo above water, even if he does have to spend $1000 for every $10 Mamdani can bring to bare.
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.
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”.
You’re confusing politicians with the government, they’re two separate things.
not in Texas
Probably a close personal friend or family of Paxton or Abbott
Trumpanomics
No, I’m pretty sure people got paid here.
😱
They probably took alot of money but 64 miles of wall on the border is quite the build. Not 3 billion dollars worth though!
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?
Utter failure, that is the legacy of the Republican party
4 years for $3 Billion but 30 years for only $20 Billion. Sure, guys.
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?
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!
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.
That was so 2016. We are all about full on fascism now.
