What does $4.2 Billion Dollars Buy?

With the recent influx of illegal aliens from South America currently pouring across our southern border with Mexico the Obama Administration has requested $4,200,000,000 of taxpayer money to address the needs of 55 to 67 thousand unaccompanied children mothers with children teenage children MS-13 Gang Members people who’ve arrived during the 1st six months of 2014 – and, are still arriving.

Now, $4.2 Billion dollars may not sound like much for a country with a $17 trillion dollar deficit, or a military fighter jet costing $400 Billion dollars which has yet to reach operational status, but it’s still a hefty chunk of taxpayer change. So, rather than thinking big and pondering what could have been done with $400 Billion other than building fighter jets, let’s think small and consider what $4.2 Billion could buy for Americans in need:

What does $4,200,000,000 dollars buy?

50	Percent of America’s homeless having a safe & secure place to stay every day for a year (according to the “Housing First” Program, at $8.4 Billion dollars per year)
1,400,000	College-age women on birth control for every month of their entire three years at law school, or, all women enrolling in all law schools in the USA for the next 21 years (at $3,000 for three years, according to Sandra Fluke’s Congressional testimony, and 65,387 women in law schools, according to the American Bar Association)
71,874	Full-time minimum wage workers salaries increased to $15/hr for the next 5 years ($7.25/hr, 29 hrs/wk, 52 wks/yr, for 5 years, or $58,435 per person gross income)
64,615	Homes for “Habitat for Humanity” (at $65K/home National average price)
12,727,272	ObamaPhones (at $320/yr + $10/phone. Please, only 1 phone per person)
120,000	Chevy Volts to reduce America’s dependency on foreign oil and keep America’s Unions working (at $35k per car)
1,536	Unsafe bridges in America’s crumbling highway system repaired or replaced (for all those new Chevy Volts, of course!)
11,441,379	Nutritious, low or no cost lunches for America’s disadvantaged and underprivileged grade school children (based on FY2012 numbers, available from this USDA report)
70	Small market Triple-A baseball stadiums (based on $60M per park. That’s enough new stadiums to provide Major League Baseball’s 30 Triple-A teams and 31 Double-A teams a new stadium with plenty of money left over!)
3,092	Large-scale (1000kW), energy-efficient wind turbines across the United States (or enough capacity to replace three 100% Green energy nuclear power plants, for you “Green Environmentalists”)
1,900,000	Unionized teachers getting a 5% bonus this year (at an average annual income of $44,000 per teacher… unfortunately, that’s only 50% of the Union Teachers in the USA)
1,268,115	Uninsured people receiving an ObamaCare health insurance subsidy every month for the next year (based on average yearly subsidy of $3,212 per person)
2	Years of High Speed Rail infrastructure development in the United States (based on the Obama Administration’s proposal of $53 Billion over the next 25 years)
500,000	Preschool children participating in the Federal Government’s Head Start program
23	Percent of the City of Detroit’s total outstanding debt ($18 Billion as of 02/21/14), which has resulted in deep cuts to pensions, health care, and city services.
———- OR ———-
132,000	New Democrat voters per year within the next 20-35 years scattered throughout predominantly Conservative states and cities (based on 55K illegal alien Latino children arriving the 1st 6 months of 2014 and assuming half are female, and 2.4 children per women, with about 52% voting Democrat once reaching voting age)

Now I’m all in favor of helping disadvantaged people who honestly and truly want to improve their lives, regardless of how they arrived at their current circumstance. However, in a time where America’s economy is in slow decline, and her preeminence and influence in world affairs is eroding – whether by accident or intent – it appears a bit disingenuous to me that some in America champion accepting even more disadvantaged people when America can’t (or won’t) even take care of her own… and worse, that some are exploiting it in the name of political gain.

It isn’t a question of humanity, morality, charity, or correctness, which the majority of people around the world practice. It isn’t about isolationism, jiingoism, Patriotism, Nationalism, or any of those other “-isms”. It’s about preserving the World’s best example of individual freedom, Representative Government, and economic and social prosperity. Because by ignoring our laws and failing to defend our borders (we’ve got an immigration policy, right?) and the possibility that illegal aliens may be granted amnesty by Executive fiat rather than through the will of the voters, we risk turning the United States into what it was just after the Declaration of Independence was signed: A concept of Democracy rather than a working, living example.

Want to know what else $4.2 Billion dollars can buy?

280,000	Men, women, and children currently waiting in line to enter this country legally (assuming an average processing cost of $15,000 per person to move through the legal immigration system, including legal fees…and, a wait in line for up to nine years or more)
1,680	Miles of protective border fence (based on an average cost of $2.5 Million per mile)
189	Remote-controlled drones flying 24 hours a day for an entire year to patrol the borders without putting United States citizens in harm’s way (based on a MQ-9 Reaper* drone and $3,000 per flight hour to fly)*
5,714	New border agents to help enforce America’s borders for the next five years (based on $70,000 annual salary* and a 2.1x burden ratio)*
Thousands of…	Pieces of protective equipment such as armored MRAP vehicles, HUMVEEs, bulletproof vests, and other gear designed to help keep America’s border defenders safe (no, wait… they can get this equipment absolutely free just for paying the shipping costs!)