Of the $15B spent on the Boston highway, the Feds had kicked in $7B in grants, after major mismanagement of the project.
But not a penny for the Border Wall?
Got it.
Senate Democrats have shown their willingness to shut down the government in lieu of spending nearly $6 billion on a border wall, but compare that price tag to some of the other expenditures the government funds….
In 2017, the federal government spent more than twice as much on farms as the requested border wall funding. During the fiscal year, U.S. farms received $13.2 billion in subsidies, according to transparency group Open The Books. Nearly 15 percent of those subsidies went to farmers in exchange for not using their land….
The government also footed the bill for nearly half of the country’s most expensive infrastructure project, which was concentrated in one city alone. After the ‘Big Dig’, a megaproject that rerouted Boston’s primary thoroughfare, was plagued by financial mismanagement and design flaws, the Federal Highway Administration stepped in and provided what amounted to about $7 billion in grants, reported The Boston Globe.
The project was completed in 2010 with a total ticket price of $15 billion.
And while the federal government has spent billions of dollars on one city’s project, it has also spent billions of dollars on individual companies.
According to a 2014 Special Inspector General report, American taxpayers took an $11.2 billion loss on its bailout of General Motors (GM). After the automaker declared bankruptcy in 2009, the government invested $49.5 billion in the company with a 61 percent equity share. Overtime, GM’s stock price dropped, and despite selling back shares, the U.S. government took billion dollar losses….
While a 2017 internal report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) forecasts that a wall would ultimately cost approximately $21.6 billion to complete, the Federation For American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates that the fiscal burden of illegal immigration on the American taxpayers is approximately $115.8 billion annually.
Feds Spent More in 1 Month on Food Stamps Than Trump Wants for Year on Wall
