Twenty-five billion dollars for a wall to benefit Americans is a tremendous idea.
However, as I recall, didn’t the president say that Mexico should pay for it?
I guess the Mexicans thought it wasn’t such a good idea for them. Now the president wants us to pay for it.
First of all, where is that money going to come from? His tax cuts have reduced the amount of money the government will collect over the years, not by billions but by trillions. However, there is a way to raise the money.
Simply have the corporations who have benefited by their 14 percent tax cut give something back that will benefit the American people.
For example, Based on the list of the Fortune 500, the 20 most profitable companies in 2017 had a combined net income of $408 billion.
This net income is after taxes.
The 14 percent savings for these 20 companies alone exceeds $57 billion.
Throw in the thousands of other multi-million dollar profitable companies and you see that 25 billion is really an insignificant amount to them. That $25 billion for the wall can benefit Americans, but what if that expenditure was provided for something else, something that could be even more beneficial for we, the American public.
Today, so many American cities are struggling to provide adequate services for their people.
How about if we took the 25 billion and distributed it to 250 struggling cities in the United States? That’s 100 million for each city.
Check out the math. Just think what these cities could do with such an influx of cash.
The money could be used to hire more police and firefighters and to raise their salaries. Other public employees including teachers would fall into the same category.
Monies could also be used for public housing in desperate need of repairs including the elimination of rodents and other health risk factors. How about fixing streets and highways, improve commuter transportation and so many other things such cities need.
As an alternative solution, perhaps the distribution could be limited to only 125 cities, with each receiving $200 million.
There is no doubt that expenditures of this nature would provide greater benefit to our citizens than the building of a wall.
As for building a wall for security purposes, can one be high enough to defend against a missile or a bomb?
Bottom line: The proposal for building a wall is strictly “off the wall.”
Alvin H. Goldberg
Great Neck,
