Governing by Slogan – When Implementation is Merely an Afterthought

 Former Mexican President Vicente Fox

with a Message for Donald Trump

It is fascinating – in a bad way – when policy is a matter of catchy slogans reinforced by a “I am never wrong” double down… but where there is no plan behind the policy. Slogans assume solutions; they are seldom supported by cold hard facts. We live in a complex world where myriad variables interact to impact just about any significant social, economic or political policy imaginable. In a modern era, despite the temptation to believe otherwise, there are almost never simple answers. So when it is pretty obvious that facts are not going to justify the slogan-suggested solution, to some politicians facts then become the enemy and the researchers and experts who generate those solid facts become “arrogant elites” out of touch with a powerful constituency. Welcome to Trump America. Welcome to false facts.

We’ve dismissed environmental controls and trashed virtually all qualified scientists, those who have repeated factually-rich tons of evidence supporting climate change, which by the way is the official policy of our military as they prepare for the future. We’ve repealed limitations on resource extraction (minerals, oil, gas and coal) and expanded wildlife and environmental preserves for such efforts despite no serious evidence that the promised jobs and economic boost will result in a world where demand for most of such resources is falling like a stone. We’ve incurred massive deficits during an already-overheated economy, given rich rewards to billionaires who needed no further incentives, to generate jobs which, if history is any index, will not materialize (in fact, all that extra corporate cash is likely to generate layoffs from the expected mergers and acquisitions).

Nothing screams “unplanned and unprepared” like Donald Trump’s immigration plans. Other than the downright hostility to all things Latino, from Puerto Rico to heavily-Hispanic California, Donald Trump is prepared to short-sheet farmers reliant on undocumented workers needed to keep food from rotting on the trees and in the fields, by finding new and interesting ways of getting rid of those less-than-lily-white-skinned foreigners… with walls, new laws and regulations (thought you hated government regulations Trumpster?) and a bevy of thousands of new ICE officers ready to rid the country of that Trump-designated-scourge.

Trump is making an $18 billion down-payment demand for “Wall, Stage One” (remember when the whole wall was going to cost $12 billion?) – 900 miles to be built over a 10 year period – as a condition for his support of DACA legislation (dem “Dreamers”) in the next budget funding effort. A hard, bricks, mortar and steel wall seems like such a woooonderful idea in an era of sophisticated electronic detection and monitoring. While Trump’s base might react well to the symbolic visual of a wall, I’m equally sure that the drug cartels may be the only Mexicans willing to help pay for it, Donald, despite your “sneaky NAFTA” ambitions to make Mexico pay write that check (yeah, sure!). After all, who would benefit the most from an excuse to raise the price of illicit narcotics than the cartels, who have never had the slightest problem getting those drugs across the border no matter what we do?

But don’t worry, because the Donald is adding a few related budget cuts to make that wall more affordable: “The Trump administration would cut or delay funding for border surveillance, radar technology, patrol boats and customs agents [vs border patrol officers] in its upcoming spending plan to curb illegal immigration — all proven security measures that officials and experts have said are more effective than building a wall along the Mexican border.” New York Times, January 8^th. Ever wonder what a drug cartel looks like when it’s smiling? But wait, there’s so much more…

So let’s drill down on Donald’s most excellent plan to recruit, train and deploy 5,000 new border officers: “Customs and Border Protection last year awarded a $297-million contract for assistance in recruiting and hiring the 5,000 border patrol agents President Trump believes we need to combat ‘the recent surge of illegal immigration at the southern border with Mexico.’ [PS, if you count negative numbers as a surge?!]… Those bold numbers may please the Make America Great Again crowd, but it will be exceedingly difficult to find qualified agents, or to deploy them effectively since the border is actually quieter than ever.

“Under the Clinton administration, it took 27 applicants to yield one Border Patrol officer. And the hiring ratio has gotten worse. In spring last year, when Customs and Border Protection requested bids for private contractors to help fulfill Trump’s order, it wrote that it now takes 133 applicants to hire one full-time employee…

“But let’s imagine that Customs and Border Protection succeeds in hiring, training and equipping all 5,000 new officers and manages to hang on to the roughly 20,000 agents it already has (which hasn’t been easy up to this point). Are they as urgently needed as the executive order would have us believe? The best evidence available tells us the answer is ‘absolutely not.’

“In 2017, the number of people apprehended at the border fell 26% compared with the previous year, and the totals haven’t been this low since the Nixon administration. The “recent surge of illegal immigration at the southern border with Mexico,” the president’s basis for his border security push, likely reflects only a temporary rise in apprehensions from 2015 to 2016. If you zoom out, that’s a blip in a long, downward trend, from more than 111,000 apprehensions in 2004 to fewer than 30,000 last year.

“Besides, Customs and Border Protection itself doesn’t even seem to know where it would be optimal to deploy additional personnel or whether they’re needed at all. According to a special report from the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General, ‘Neither CBP nor ICE could provide complete data to support the operational need or deployment strategies for the additional ... agents and officers they were directed to hire.’

“A suddenly larger law enforcement agency, with numerous new recruits and without a clear deployment strategy, isn’t just a financial liability, but a safety risk.

“Another Homeland Security Inspector General report found numerous problems with DHS agencies keeping track of and securing their equipment. Customs and Border Protection, for instance, did not have an accurate firearm inventory and one agent left his gun in a backpack at a gym, where it was stolen.” Los Angeles Times, January 8^th. Yup, we have so much surplus money, notwithstanding the massive deficit we just created by giving rich people more money under the guise of “tax reform,” and we have no other places we could possibly deploy that cash in a way that actually might benefit real American citizens…

I’m Peter Dekom, it must take a “mentally stable genius” to fight so hard for a program with virtually no real benefit for much of anyone… except some building contractors and these unnecessary additions to the federal bureaucracy.