[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 6 (Tuesday, January 10, 2017)]
[House]
[Page H248]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP'S PROMISE TO BUILD A WALL WITH MEXICO AND
MAKE THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT PAY FOR IT
(Mr. POLIS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, you might recall, during the campaign,
President-elect Donald Trump promised to build a wall with Mexico and,
of course, make the Mexican Government pay for it.
Well, now we are hearing that Republicans intend to come to this
body, Congress, to spend your hard-earned money and mine, American
taxpayer money, to build a wall with Mexico. They are estimating $10
billion to $12 billion.
Well, do you know what? In comprehensive immigration reform, which I
was proud to support last session, we had over $40 billion for border
security. So apparently Donald Trump is building one-quarter of the
wall, all directly with deficit spending.
In comprehensive immigration reform, we not only paid for that border
security, not only paid for that $40 billion and required people who
were here illegally to pay fines and register and get right with the
law, it actually would reduce the budget deficit by over $200 billion
over 10 years.
So what we have is one-quarter of the wall and deficit spending with
Donald Trump. With Democrats, four times the wall and reduce the
deficit by $200 billion.
Mr. Speaker, the choice is obvious.
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