The Stupid Wall

ProPublica has a few numbers relative to Trump's Wall. The first budget number is $2.6 billion. However, this amount is not for a new wall; it will go to build a bunch of smaller walls and patch holes in the assortment of fences that now exist. The cost of the wall per se is now estimated at $21 billion.

Some other things that the $2.1 billion could be used for:

• To fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting plus the $231 million given to the country’s libraries and museums plus the $366 million that goes to legal help for the poor. These total less than $1 billion.
• The federal government could increase the annual combined spending on the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities by 900 percent or so and still not get to the $2.6 billion. 
• The $2.6 billion is more than twice the annual costs of 21st Century Community Learning Centers created across the country to fund programs run before and after school and throughout the summer. You could actually throw in the $190 million spent on teaching students with disabilities and limited English proficiency and still not match the wall costs.