Here’s a letter to the Washington Post:
A headline of yours today reads “Trump seeks $18 billion from lawmakers for border wall [2].” A more accurate description is this: “Trump seeks $18 billion from American citizens for border wall.”
The 535 “lawmakers” in Congress will personally pony up only an infinitesimal fraction of whatever funds are spent to build Trump’s border wall. Those who will actually pay to erect this atrocious monument to Alt-right fears of openness and to Trumpian hostility toward peaceful, productive cooperation with foreigners are the very people whose future will be made poorer and less secure – and less free – by these fears and hostility: ordinary Americans.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030