BY RUSSELL TURNER
PAY NOW OR PAY LATER
Being in the HVAC business I understand the importance of good construction practices when building our homes. I can remember when many people had little or no insulation in their attics or walls and the windows used were single pane; in cold weather you could scrape frost off of them when you were inside the house shivering from the cold. Over the past couple of decades there has been a huge increase in the quality of products that are built into our houses. Today there are many companies that sell and install new windows for older homes, they make the claim that the energy savings will pay for the windows in a short period of time. Those companies are correct in that statement. Most home owners are amazed at the difference new, improved windows have on their homes. When you get down to it the decision is very obvious; you can leave the old windows in and let your warm air continue to escape to the outside, or you can invest in the new windows and prevent all of your warm air escaping to the great outdoors. If you don’t pay for the new windows, you will continue to have your money escaping to the outdoors along with the warm air from your house. This scenario reminds me of the debate on building a border wall between the United States and Mexico.
We need to remember that not all of the people crossing our southern border are hardened criminals, but we also need to remember that there are some very bad individuals imbedded with them. One thing the illegal immigrants have in common is they are breaking our laws and their actions are costing taxpayers dearly. In 2016, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) calculated that there are approximately 55,000 criminal aliens in federal prison and another 297,000 in State and local prisons.
“Our fiscal cost study in 2010, estimated administration of justice costs at the federal level related to criminal aliens at $7.8 billion annually. The comparable cost to state and local governments was $8.7 billion.” Think the costs have risen in 8 years?
All across our nation government at all levels is running out of money and is continually making more demands upon the taxpayers to keep the party going a little longer. When you do the math in 2010 numbers you are looking at a cost of over 16 billion per year in expenses that the taxpayers are forced to pay and very little to show for it. The border wall is just like replacing faulty windows in your home; we can invest to stop the holes, but if we do nothing we will be paying from now on. It is a sad state of affairs when most Americans understand the benefits of replacing old inefficient windows but fail to understand the financial importance of maintaining a secure border. We can either pay now or pay later.
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