Rayburn Plan For Secure Borders ... And How To Pay For It.
Rayburn Plan For Secure Borders ... And How To Pay For It.
As your next Congressman, two of my greatest responsibilities beyond winning the war against radical Islamic terrorists will be securing our border and restoring fiscal discipline. These two issues come together when you consider the financial strain that illegal immigration is placing on this country. Last year alone, Colorado spent nearly $1 billion on education, incarceration, and health care costs for illegal aliens and their families. Nationally, the costs are substantially more.
To solve these problems, I support the construction of a real border fence along our southern border. We must secure all our borders and ports of entry, but first we must concentrate on the porous southern border. A border fence must provide real security, without obligating us to the long-term costs of maintaining an enormous Border Patrol force.
In some locations, especially highly populated areas, the border fence will have to be a robust, multi-layered barrier to ensure its effectiveness. I encourage you to visit www.WeNeedAFence.com to learn more about one such solution. In other areas the fence might not have to be quite so elaborate and expensive, and may be backed up with high-tech solutions for surveillance and physical denial, but the bottom line will remain that any solution must be effective while being efficient at the same time.
My experience as the senior military commander at our largest air base in Saudi Arabia, responsible for keeping the base safe against intrusion by terrorist threats, tells me that securing our borders can be done as long as we have the will to accomplish the task.
Over the several years it would take to build this fence, it is estimated that it will cost us between four and eight billion dollars. While the savings to the nation would be several times this in the first year alone, I believe that we should fund it by eliminating wasteful programs. I have proposed eliminating the Department of Commerce and its $4.5 billion annual budget. In less than two years we will have "saved" enough to pay for the fence and will continue to save money every year after that. Now there are three programs with the Department of Commerce that I would preserve by moving them to different departments or by leaving them as independent agencies. They are the Bureau of the Census, the Patent and Trademark Office, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
* * No amnesty for illegal aliens
* * No public benefits for illegal aliens
* * Increased penalties for human smugglers
* * Penalties for businesses that knowingly hire illegal aliens
* * Increased manpower for the U.S. Border Patrol
* * Construction of a real border security fence
* * National Guard on the border while the fence is being built
Securing the border, eliminating wasteful programs, and protecting the taxpayers and their walletsthat is what I call a real solution and, with your vote, that is how I will approach the problems we face in Congress. If you like my plan, please forward it to your friends and remember to vote for Bentley Rayburn in the Republican Primary on August 8th.
http://rayburnforcongress.org/border_plan.php