Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials themselves are reportedly admitting that there’s no practical usefulness to painting impeached president Donald Trump’s border fencing black as he’s been apparently insisting. But they’re considering doing it anyway at tens of millions in taxpayer expense because, well, it’s what he wants, CNN reports.
“[C]urrent and former agency officials argue the painted finish would have little effectiveness, saying it's largely being done to placate the President,” CNN said. “’Any technical, structural or engineering enhancement that paint provides is extremely limited,’ a US official said, adding that it will cost more in the long run to reapply paint as it wears.” But the administration is reportedly considering painting over 80 miles of fencing anyway, and at $1 million a mile. Guess who’d pay for that. You.
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The Washington Post reported last June about Donald Trump’s insistence on painting his entire racist monument at the southern border black to the tune of hundreds of million of dollars at the bare minimum, apparently “insisting that the dark color will enhance its forbidding appearance and leave the steel too hot to touch during summer months.”
A government estimate obtained by The Post estimated the costs could range from a “low-end” of $500 million to as much as $3 billion. Once again, paid for by you. “[M]ilitary commanders and border officials believed as recently as last fall that they had finally talked him out of it,” The Post reported then. Apparently not. CNN reports that after having tested black paint on some portions of the fence, we could now be looking at 82 miles of godforsaken black fence to match the black hearts in the White House. As if the multibillion dollar monstrosity itself weren’t bad enough as it is.
“Trump’s obsession with wall symbolism fits neatly alongside other monstrous examples of his recklessness,” America’s Voice Director of Communication Douglas Rivlin said. “[S]tanding with the Bible in front of a church he’s never entered; having Secret Service drive him in a SUV around Walter Reed’s perimeter to waive at supporters; and waving and wheezing from the White House balcony as he endangers everyone around him.
“He doesn’t care about anything but his ego and the symbols that he thinks benefit him politically and make him look like a strongman,” Rivlin continued. We should be angry about our stolen tax dollars being used for this racist monument that’s desecrating American Indian lands, that’s destroying the environment, and actively pushes migrants to their deaths by forcing them to cross in more dangerous and desolate regions.
We should should also be angry that it’s a taxpayer-funded abomination that, like the Trump presidency, is destined for failure. Engineers have said that the privately funded wall that in part led to the arrest of corrupt former Trump official Steve Bannon is on the verge of collapse. The Trump-favored contractor that built the private section, Fisher Sand and Gravel, also got the federal contract (in a highly corrupt scheme) to erect even more fencing. That should go well.
“Of course, for the rest of us, recklessly endangering the lives of everyone around him to stage photo ops and spending more than $80 million to paint the stupid border wall black because he likes the way it looks is an indictment of this man, his character and his presidency, not a reason to vote for him,” Rivlin continued. “No matter how much he tries, Trump can’t paint over failure.”