As a gesture of bipartisanship and fairness, the following stipulations should be enacted before further discussions about The Wall:
1) If there is a government shutdown then immediately the pay and assets of the president, vice president, Senate, House and the lawyers and lobbyists enabling it shall be frozen. This will require full financial disclosure including tax returns for public inspection.
2) The day of the shutdown the above shall report to the National Zoo for meaningful work. The president will clean up after the elephants, the vice president the serpents, the Senate the baboons, the House the horses and asses, and the lawyers and lobbyists will be disbursed to public places to clean up the human waste.
In the midst of all the noise and shouting I hear the faint echo of the late President Ronald Reagan saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.” It’s curious how we came from championing the tearing of a wall to building one. Maybe we could tear down the monument of Liberty and recycle it into wall parts.
As for paying for the wall, the Mexicans wouldn’t. The American people wouldn’t. You do, however, have a mechanism in place. Someone has started a GoFundMe page.
The artist of the deal could take a page out of the unbelievable strategist George W. Bush and form a coalition for the cause. You could get contributors like but not limited to the RNC, NRA, Fox and friends, the Koch family, pals in Russia and the Middle East who are equally invested in dividing and making America hate again. It’s a simple plan. You can fund yourselves.
Leo Ojala
Shelburne