The Big Bulbous Bill and Job One


Posted On: Monday - July 7th 2025 6:49PM MST
In Topics:   Immigration Stupidity  Trump  Economics  Liberty/Libertarianism  US Feral Government



That term of ours is not very good, but we haven's spent, and don't plan of spending, time writing about the subject. About all we have written was just a bit in this post saying "Good riddance!" to N. Carolina Senator Thom Tillis. Peak Stupidity just can't be a very good news site - we don't have the time, so we're usually days, weeks, or months behind.

I may as well give an opinion though, since the point of this post involves that "Big Beautiful Bill". Firstly, it seems like the resistance from MAGA on some of the egregious backsliding introduced (or maybe re-introduced) in the Senate version was made by the ctrl-left into a big rift. Nah. We've got a right to push Trump to do less stupid stuff.

Secondly, I do realize that, even were the Thomas Massies and your Rand Pauls to have been let to hand edit the 900-odd pages, we're not doing no balancing of no budget. (By that, I mean, not even bringing expenditures down to meet revenue for one year.) Uhhh, no, we explained - see also Will the DOGE save our economy? and Budget Cutting v Austerity. Why should President Trump, in the middle of actually doing quite a bit of good for White America, turn the off music himself and be the one standing in this game of musical chairs?

Personally, I like the continuation and even improvement in income tax rates, incl, the doubling of the standard deduction. No, that doesn't help the country, but my paying more in to support NGOs like USAID doesn't help it either.

Job One is fighting the immigration invasion though. That includes actually going on offense, meaning becoming Deportation Nation. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a very significant amount of the expenditures, $175 Billon over 4 years, will go to immigration enforcement. From Gateway Pundit* Trump’s New Immigration Budget Surpasses Most of the World’s Militaries — Including Entire Russian Defense Spending. Here's a breakdown of that, adding up to $150 Billion of the total:
* $46 ± billion for border wall/barriers
* $45 billion for detention capacity expansion
* $30 billion for ICE operations (hiring 10,000 agents)
* $13.5 billion for state/local cost-reimbursement programs
* $10 billion for DHS reimbursements
* $3.3 billion for immigration court expansion and admin support
* $5 billion for CBP facility upgrades and staffing
Other smaller allocations add up to the total.
There's always waste and graft, but, man something is really off with a couple of the numbers that I can sort of get a handle on. It says elsewhere that ICE and CPB together will see an ANNUAL budget increase from some $10 Billion to $30 Billion. They say 10,000 additional ICE agents? Is that what you get for $20 Billion extra?



That may be the low end and without O/T, overhead of various sorts, etc, but just the simple math says even $200,000 per head would total $2 Billion annually. Something seems off, unless Customs/Border Patrol is adding many more than that. There's a lot of slop in there, I mean it's a factor of 5 to 10. Is that how much waste and graft we get? I hope I'm missing something.

Then, there's that border wall. I've been through this long ago:
The cost of the interstate system that Wikipedia contributors estimate is $10,000,000 per mile, but keep in mind that that covers all of the city loops and spurs that require expensive land purchases compared to a straight shot across the plains of eastern Colorado. It's probably much less than 10 million bucks per mile, maybe 1/2 that for the lengthy real cross-country road.

How much would a good barrier cost per mile? 1 million bucks? I doubt really that much if it weren't for the US government bidding it, as they have no reason to save money. Say 1 million and the overestimate of the whole < 2,000 miles. That's 2 billion bucks which is, averaged out, about 1 1/2 HOURS of Feral Gov't spending (assuming they can only spend during business hours 8/day)!
$46 Billion is over 20x that yugely Conservative estimate. Either inflation in sheet steel and concrete pier construction has been even more than the worst Peak Stupidity has imagined or the wall is being constructed out of gold-plated titanium.



Whatever. It's all just Uncle Sam's borrowed fiat play money. Yes, lets do this.

We try to be optimistic here, still thinking that Trump is generally making good on his promises when it comes to Job One. The border is under control for the first time in many decades. Though it's at only 1/10 or lower than a rate that would encourage massive self-deportation, there is a deportation program going on. Nobody else would have gotten this going.

Still, there's this nagging feeling, though, that, if things with President Trump aren't as they seem, or even if they are, but evil people behind him have other plans, maybe Alligator Alcatraz, 10,000 expensive ICE agents, and that wall will all be used against US someday. We'd better have some faith. Just in case, though, maybe 10,000 IS enough.


* In case you're wondering, yes, GP opens a pop-up window surreptitiously now, if you don't have it blocked. Something about Dana somebody... and it's gone.

Comments:
Moderator
Tuesday - July 8th 2025 7:51PM MST
PS: "... which is fine with me." Me too.
Moderator
Tuesday - July 8th 2025 5:31PM MST
PS: "But how could the wall do that? Am I missing something?" SafeNow, people say the wall will eventually be used to keep us in. Honestly, I think that's quite a stretch*. When the SHTF, I really can't imagine Mexico being so much better off. Maybe people would want to get out that way to go to ... who knows where, but probably not Uruguay. (Checked out the place last winter.)


* In that Lionel Shriver Prepper novel "The Mandibles", the Mexicans have bolstered their border to keep Americans from busting in. Haha, nice touch. This, BTW, is the book for which Peak Stupidity wrote our longest review - a 6-parter! (In Books.)
SafeNow
Tuesday - July 8th 2025 5:30PM MST
PS
Perspective on the aggregate increase: The ICE budget is 12 times larger than before, growing from $8B to $100B. This is equal to more than a tenth of the entire DOD budget, which is fine with me. it should be more than a tenth.
SafeNow
Tuesday - July 8th 2025 3:39PM MST
PS
I can readily envision how Alligator Alcatraz could be used against us. Scary. And maybe the agents. But how could the wall do that? Am I missing something?
Moderator
Tuesday - July 8th 2025 12:25PM MST
PS: Ooops, yeah, back-of-the-envelope is one thing, but I should have at least written 20x, Adam. I'll correct that in a second.

I was about to mention that video you pasted for us within this post, as I still remember that post here. OK, don't say anything, anyone, if you are ahead of us on the math... except Adam Smith.
Adam Smith
Tuesday - July 8th 2025 12:10PM MST
PS: Good afternoon, Achmed!

Isn't $46 Billion more like 23x that yugely Conservative estimate?

𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 $200,000 𝑝𝑒𝑟 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 $2 𝐵𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦. 𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑚𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑓...

I guess that's just "government" employee math for you...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il16p8YvS5E

No worse than MSNBC. (For whatever that's worth.) ☮️

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