DCRepublican.com

Wed 23 Apr 2008

I know I’ve said on many occasions that the government is notorious for wasting money; however you would think that when it came to something as simple as the concept of a fence, they would be able to get it right eventually.

I guess those of us that made that assumption have been proven wrong.

After a showing of unwavering pressure from border states over the past five years, the United States government found itself in a position where it finally had to make it look like it was doing something to secure our borders, while not upsetting certain groups of people.

What’s the easiest way for the government to make it look like it is doing something? Spend a lot of money on things that don’t work.

Instead of taking the most cost effective approach to patching the many holes in our borders, the Department of Homeland Security gave Boeing $20 million to build a tower that would alert border agents when someone was illegally crossing the border.

CNN.com is reporting that this was another wasted sum of money by the government:

TUCSON, Arizona (AP) — The government is scrapping a $20 million prototype of its highly touted “virtual fence” on the Arizona-Mexico border because the system is failing to adequately alert border patrol agents to illegal crossings, officials said.The move comes just two months after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced his approval of the fence built by The Boeing Co. The fence consists of nine electronic surveillance towers along a 28-mile section of border southwest of Tucson.

Boeing is to replace the so-called Project 28 prototype with a series of towers equipped with communications systems, cameras and radar capability, officials said.

Wouldn’t the later proposal from Boeing have been a better solution anyway?

Furthermore, how much fencing do you think that $20 million could buy?

If we just looked at solutions that have worked for other countries, like Israel, we would see that for $20 million, we could develop the start of what could be one very secure border.

Check out this image:

This layout definitely looks much more effective than anything I’ve seen the United States try and  build on our border.

What’s even more impressive is the cost.

For this fence, it only cost Israel $2 million per kilometer. That sounds like a lot, but just imagine how much money the United States spends each year ignoring this problem.

The U.S. government knows that they could be doing a much better job of securing our borders, and they know exactly how well things have worked in Israel.

Even with the knowledge they have on how they could solve this problem, they just throw in enough money to make it look like they are really trying.

Temporarily it will please both sides, but eventually people will see what is really happening and bring back the pressure.