At half a mile a week, Gov. Greg Abbott's border wall will take around 30 years and $20 billion to build [View all]
BY JASPER SCHERER
JULY 3, 2024
Three years after Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas would take the extraordinary step of building a state-funded wall along the Mexico border, he has 34 miles of steel bollards to show for it.
That infrastructure which has so far run up a price tag of some $25 million per mile isnt yet a contiguous wall. It has gone up in bits and pieces spread across at least six counties on Texas 1,254-mile southern border. Progress has been hampered by the states struggles to secure land access, one of myriad challenges signaling a long and enormously expensive slog ahead for Abbott.
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Still, no Texas Republican has voted against border wall funding. Lawmakers approved nearly $2.5 billion for the effort in the states current two-year budget more than was allotted in state funds to all but a handful of state agencies, and more than twice what Texas spends on its court and juvenile justice systems. (Emphasis mine.)
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Sooo. Our maternal deaths are increasing; our infant mortality rates are increasing; we rank 41/42 in school funding; we lack access in pre and post natal care in large areas; our sales and property taxes are some of the highest in the nation.
This is what the rest of you can expect from a Republican sweep in November.