Army Decides a Pandemic Is a Good Time to Give GOP Donors $569 Million to ‘Build the Wall’....
In the middle of a pandemic that has killed 27,000 Americans and counting, the Army this week gave a politically connected Montana firm half a billion dollars—not to manufacture ventilators or protective gear to fight the novel coronavirus, but to build 17 miles of
President Trump’s southern border wall.
This Is fucking shameful to me ... an army vet.
On
Tuesday, the Army Corps of Engineers announced it awarded BFBC, an affiliate of
Barnard Construction, $569 million in contract modifications for building “17.17 miles” of the wall in two California locations, El Centro and San Diego. That works out to over $33 million per mile—steeply
above the $20 million-per-mile averagethat the Trump administration is already doling out for the wall. Construction is supposed to be completed by the end of June 2021.
And it’s only the latest wall contract the firm has gotten. BFBC, a reliable contributor to Republican politicians, has gotten over $1 billion in taxpayer money in less than a year to build a mere 37 miles worth of
wall. Scott Amey, the general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, urged federal watchdogs to investigate the new BFBC contract.
“$1 billion for 37 miles of wall is a travesty and it must be investigated and audited immediately,” Amey said. “That’s nearly $27 million per mile, which is well above other wall costs. These efforts might make good on a campaign promise, but who is minding the store and ensuring that military readiness and bases are not negatively impacted?”
And three days before BFBC got its latest windfall, several House Democrats wrote to the departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security urging them to immediately stop wall construction.
“In a time when our communities face the prospect of rationing ventilators and other life-saving care, all of our government’s resources should be spent on building hospitals and medical equipment, and ensuring that the public is safe and healthcare workers have all of the resources they need to face this unprecedented crisis,”
wrote Reps. Raul Grijalva, Bennie G. Thompson, Filemon Vela, and Ann Kirkpatrick on April 8. The legislators noted that the additional construction endangered “border residents, and the communities of construction workers.”
“There’s no decency factor when it comes to this wall,” Grijalva told The Daily Beast. “These are cronies of Trump, the financial base, they’re getting taken care of. Irrespective of the pandemic, the opposition to the wall, the environment, health, indigenous [concerns], all the court cases, this vanity wall proceeds at a rapid pace.”
Vote the COVIDIOT REPUBS OUT !
FUCK YOU TRUMP AND YOUR CRONIES...
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