DCRepublican.com

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.

For many, apparently not.

According to the poll below, it looks like a lot of voters on both sides are unclear as to where the candidates they are supporting really stand on immigration.

This is very interesting to me, because I truly believe that immigration is going to be a major issue in this campaign cycle, for Democrats, Republicans and everything in between.

From the Center for Immigration Studies:

WASHINGTON (March 31, 2007) –A new poll using neutral language finds that primary and caucus voters have little knowledge of candidates’ immigration positions. The results also show that voters often do not share their candidate’s position.

Among the findings:

 

• Only 34 percent of McCain voters, 42 percent of Clinton voters, and 52 percent of Obama voters correctly identified their candidate as favoring eventual citizenship for illegal immigrants who meet certain requirements.
• Of McCain voters, 35 percent mistakenly thought he favored enforcement that would cause illegals to return home, another 10 percent thought he wanted mass deportations, and 21 percent didn’t know his position.
• Voters often held different positions from the candidate they supported. Only 31 percent of McCain voters had the same immigration position as he does. For Clinton voters, 45 percent shared her position; 61 percent of Obama voters shared his position.
• This lack of knowledge, coupled with disagreements with their candidates’ positions, makes it very difficult to draw any conclusions about the fact that all three remaining candidates favor legalization for illegal immigrants.
• Whoever wins the presidency will face significant opposition to giving eventual citizenship to illegal immigrants. Just 25 percent of Republican and 50 percent of Democratic primary/caucus voters said they would support such an effort.
• Pro-enforcement voters have a greater intensity of views than supporters of legalization. Among Republicans, almost nine out ten who favored causing illegals to return home said they strongly supported that view; on the other hand, fewer than half of Republicans who backed legalization strongly supported that view.
• This greater intensity also exists among Democrats. Of Democrats who favored causing illegals to return home, more than seven out of ten strongly supported that view; on the other hand, fewer than six out of ten who favored legalization strongly supported that view.

Methodology: The survey of 1,276 persons who voted in a primary or caucus was conducted March 12-13. The survey was conducted by Pulse Opinion Research.

Even though this study shows that there are some uninformed McCain voters, the fact of the matter is that McCain is the presumptive GOP nominee. Basically, those who are going to vote for him are doing so on more issues than immigration.

However, these findings are extremely problematic for Hillary Clinton, whose campaign has been on a downward spiral for weeks, despite leading in polls in upcoming primaries.

The fact of the matter is that she is avoiding answering questions in a straightforward manner which leaves her supporters in a position where they have to guess, or naturally assume Hillary Clinton is on the same page as them.

Obama on the other hand, seems to be much more straightforward on the issues and doesn’t beat around the bush when he is asked questions.

Is this going to be an election of straight talk? We’ll see.