Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Reasons to build the wall

The main objections I hear from Democrats about the wall they were in favor of in 2006, but not in 2017-18 (because Trump is president) are, 1) it won't work, 2) the cost, and 3) it's racist. Let's briefly touch on racism. Border security is not and never was, racist. If it were racist all security methods would also be racist. Even the locks on your doors and automobiles. We wouldn't have security at our northern borders or our airports if protecting borders were racism. During the Obama years, Border Patrol was apprehending illegals from high risk countries coming in from Canada (164 in 2011), and they weren't Canadians, most were recent Muslim immigrants to Canada.

If we judged government programs/policies by cost or whether they work, Head Start, which costs about $10.6 Billion in programing and $5.7 Billion in childcare (2017), would have been dropped years ago. No party will even touch that idea.

It was like pulling teeth to get an impact study (begun in 1998, data collection began in 2002, reported in 2010), but after billions and billions spent on Head Start since 1965, the final impact study showed some social and intellectual advancement in the pre-school years which was lost by the end of first grade. The final study, done by the government and analyzed out the wazoo, showed a huge workforce was paid, children had moderate to good day care, better health care, but the goals of the program were not met. The Head Start children on average did no better than the control group which did NOT receive all those benefits of a government pre-school. Even after a decade of study, the conclusion was--we need more study, more analysis, more explanations, and more money.

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/executive_summary_final.pdf

If high costs and no discernable results are good enough for Head Start for 50+ years, it should be good enough for at least a decade of border security.

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