Trumps budget will request $3.1 billion to build border wall, experts say cost is over $21 billion

[Miles Archer]

Trump’s budget will request $3.1 billion to build border wall



http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/trumps-budget-will-request-3-1-billion-to-build-border-wall/

Donald Trump wants more than $3 billion over the next year and a half to start building his wall on the border with Mexico, one of a number of controversial requests the White House will roll out as part of its budget “blueprint” on Thursday.

The president insists he will build the wall, one of his most prominent campaign pledges, despite intense skepticism among experts and lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Trump is asking for $1.5 billion as part of his request for the rest of fiscal year 2017, which runs through the end of September (Congress has only funded the government through April 28, 2017). For fiscal year 2018, the White House plans to request $2.6 billion, a senior administration official told reporters in a conference call on Wednesday.

That’s just a fraction of what experts estimate building a wall the length of the 3,100-mile border will cost. The Department of Homeland Security’s internal calculation, leaked in February, pegged the cost at more than $21 billion. The administration official conceded that the $1.5 billion for this year just “allows us to start that program.”

“We haven’t settled on construction types, we haven’t settled on where we’re going to start,” he explained. “I think the funding provides for a couple different pilot cases, different kinds of barriers in different kinds of places.”

[yallerdawg]

1. Dialing it back a little, isn't he?

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