Sales Tax Rate Sheet Texas 2007: Fill & Download for Free

You really want to know? Here are some difficult statistics. CA vs. the Other States -- revised 16 April, 2019"Here’s a depressing but documented comparison of California taxes and economic climate with the rest of the states. The news is not good (at least once a month, I update crucial data on this fact sheet):Prior to Prop 30 passing in Nov. 2012, CA already had the 3rd worst state income tax rate in the nation. Our 9.3% tax bracket started at under $50,000 for people filing as individuals. 10.3% started at $1 million. Now our “millionaires’ tax” rate is 13.3% – including capital gains (CA total CG rate now the 2nd highest in the world!). 10+% taxes now start at $250K. CA now has by far the nation’s highest state income tax rate.We are 34% higher than 2nd place Oregon, and a heck of a lot higher than all the rest – including 7 states with zero state income tax – and two states (NH and TN) that tax only dividends and interest income (not capital gains). NOTE: TN tax totally phases out by 2022.CA is so bad, we also have the nation's 2nd highest state income tax bracket. AND the 3rd. AND the 5th. AND the 8th!http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/ff2013.pdf Table #12andCalifornia now has 2nd highest capital gains tax -- in the WORLDCA has the highest state sales tax rate in the nation. 7.25% (does not include local sales taxes). 9th highest state with the average local sales tax included (8.56% on 1 January, 2019 – up from 8.25% in 2017).State and Local Sales Tax Rates, 2019 | Tax FoundationCA corporate income tax rate (8.84%) is the highest west of Iowa except for Alaska (our economic competitors). Overall CA has the 7th highest corporate tax rate in nation. And it's 8.84% from the first dollar of profit made.State Corporate Income Tax Rates and Brackets for 2019CA has the nation’s 2nd highest “gas pump” tax at 72.76 cents/gallon (March, 2019). Add in the unique 10-12 cent CA “cap and trade” tax per gallon, and CA is the worst – 6 to 8 cents more than PA. National average is 52.18 cents. Yet CA has the 9th worst highways (41 states are better).Gasoline Tax (CA easily has the nation's highest total diesel tax)andhttp://reason.org/files/22nd_annual_highway_report.pdfandCalifornia has "only" the 2nd highest state gasoline prices -- but not for longCalifornia in 2015 ranked 14th highest in per capita property taxes (including commercial) – the only major tax where we are not in the worst ten states. But the 2014 average CA single-family residence (SFR) property tax is the 8th highest state in the nation. Indeed, the median CA homeowner property tax bill is 93% higher than the average for the other 49 states.http://tinyurl.com/go89o6uandAverage SFR Property Taxes By StateandCA median homeowner property tax bill is 93% higher than the average of the other 49 states!Average 2012 CA impact fee for single-family residence was $31,100, 90% higher than next worst state. 265% higher than jurisdictions that levy such fees (many governments east of the Sierras do not). For apartments, fee averaged $18,800, 290% above average outside state. The fee is part of the purchase price, so buyer pays an annual property tax on the fee!California Homes Require Real Reachandhttp://eyeonhousing.org/2014/01/home-building-impact-fees-state-averages/CA has now instituted highest “cap and trade” tax in the nation – indeed, the ONLY such U.S. tax. Even proponents concede that it will have zero impact on global warming. The tax especially increases the cost of electricity, gasoline and manufacturing.California's New Green TaxCalifornia has a nasty anti-small business $800 minimum corporate income tax, even if no profit is earned, and even for many nonprofits. Next highest state is Rhode Island at $500 (only for “C” corporations). 3rd is Delaware at $175. Most states are at zero.http://tinyurl.com/CA-800-taxBased just on GDP, CA, by far the most populous state, ranks as the 5th largest economy in the world. But adjusted for population and cost of living, CA prosperity ranks lower than all but 13 U.S. states.UPDATED 2015 FIGURES: CA per capita GDP -- adjusted for COL -- is worse than all but 13 statesCalifornia’s 2019 “business tax climate” ranks 2nd worst in the nation – behind anchor-clanker New Jersey – a decline from 3rd worst last year. In addition, CA has a lock on the worst rank in the 2017 Small Business Tax Index – 8% worse than the 2nd worst business state (New Jersey).State Business Tax Climate Index | Tax FoundationandSmall Business & Entrepreneurship CouncilThe American Tort Reform Foundation in 2019 ranks CA the “worst state judicial hellhole” in U.S. – worse than 2018 “winner:” Florida. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranked CA a bit better – “only” the 4th worst state in 2017 (unfortunately, sliding from 7th worst in 2008).http://www.judicialhellholes.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/judicial-hellholes-report-2017-2018.pdfandCaliforniaCA driving tickets are incredibly high. Red-light camera ticket $500. Next highest state is $250. Most are around $100.Red-Light Cameras and the Enigmatic Jerry BrownCA has the 2nd highest/worst state workers’ compensation rates in 2018. More important factor than a state's corporate income tax. 169% of median state rate. Yet we pay low benefits -- much goes to lawyers.https://www.oregon.gov/dcbs/reports/Documents/general/prem-sum/18-2082.pdfThe Tax Foundation “Tax Freedom Day” study ranks CA as the 12th worst taxed state in 2019. But many new CA state and local taxes proposed this year. More important, the huge CA state income tax is the most progressive of all states, hammering the upper fourth of the populace. The top 1% pay 50% of all CA state income taxes. A CA person's Tax Freedom Day varies dramatically.https://taxfoundation.org/tax-freedom-day-2019CA unemployment rate (February, 2019) is 4.2%. Yet we are still worse than all but 11 states. National unemployment rate is 3.8%. The CA unemployment rate is 12.1% higher than the average of the other 49 states.Unemployment Rates for StatesandEmployment Situation SummaryBut using the lagging yet arguably more accurate U-6 measure of unemployment (includes involuntary part-time workers), CA is the 8th worst – 8.8% vs. national 7.7%. National U-6 not including CA is 7.55%, making CA’s U-6 16.6% higher than other states. Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization for StatesCA public school teachers are the 2nd highest paid in the nation – avg $81,126. CA students rank 46th in math achievement, 42nd in reading.NAEP State Profilesandhttp://www.nea.org/assets/docs/180413-Rankings_And_Estimates_Report_2018.pdf page 49CA annual per state prisoner cost ($75,560) is easily the highest in the nation – over triple the avg. cost of the 18 states with the least-costly rates.http://californiapolicycenter.org/prison-unions-punish-california-taxpayers/andhttp://www.tinyurl.com/CA-prison-costCalifornia, a destitute state, still gives away community college education at fire sale prices. Our CC tuition and fees are the lowest in the nation. How low? Nationwide, the average community college tuition and fees are TRIPLE our California CC’s.http://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/tuition-and-fees-sector-and-state-over-timeThis ridiculously low tuition devalues education to students – often resulting in a 25+% drop rate for class completion. In addition, because of grants and tax credits, up to 2/3 of California CC students pay no net tuition at all!Two-year colleges' fees likely to rise 30%Complaints about increased UC student fees too often ignore a key point -- all poor and many middle class CA students don't pay the UC “fees” (our state’s euphemism for tuition). There are no fees for most California families with under $80K income. 55% of all undergraduate CA UC students pay zero tuition, and another 14% pay only partial tuition. Moreover, CA's new “Middle Class Scholarship” program provides partial tuition aid for CA public college students of families with income from $80K to $150K.http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/blueandgold/andhttp://tinyurl.com/UC-zeroandTuition financial aid on the way for middle-class California familiesCalifornia’s real (“supplemental”) 2017 poverty rate (the new census bureau standard adjusted for the COL) is still easily the worst in the nation at 19.0%. We are 43.9% higher than the average for the other 49 states. Texas is 14.7%. CA poverty rate is 34.6% higher than Texas.https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/p60/265/table5.xlsCalifornia has 12% of the nation’s population, but amazingly has over 43% of the entire country’s TANF (“Temporary” Assistance for Needy Families) and SSP welfare recipients. That's 5.6 TIMES the percentage of welfare recipients in these categories found in the other 49 states!TANF 12th Report to Congress page 20California ranks 50th worst for people's debt-to-income ratio, and 49th worst for percentage of home ownership.More dismal California economic rankingsandCalifornians have twice as much debt as income. That could mean trouble if another recession hits.California has the 2nd lowest bond rating of any state – Basket case Illinois beat us out for the lowest spot. We didn’t improve our rating – Illinois just got worse.http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2014/06/09/sp-ratings-2014Average California firefighter paid 60% more than paid firefighters in other 49 states. CA cops paid 56% more. CA 2016 median household income (including gov’t workers) is only 12.8% above national avg.Find out how much your state pays for police and firefighters. Compare.andMedian Annual Household IncomeCA COL is 41.0% higher than the national average in the 1st qtr 2018, up from 36.3% higher a year earlier. CA COL is 54.4% higher than TX.https://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/cost_of_living/The median CA home costs 2.4 times more than the national median home.How high are CA home prices vs. the other states? About TRIPLE.CA has 2nd highest annual cost for owning a car – $4,112. $370 higher than the other 49 states' average.Most (and Least) Expensive States to Own a CarCA residential electricity costs an average of 51.3% more per kWh than the national average. CA commercial rates are 64.6% higher. For industrial use, CA electricity is an astonishing 105.2% higher than the 50 state average – an average which includes CA! (June, 2018).EIA - Electricity DataNOTE: SDG&E/Sempra is considerably higher than the CA average.A 2015 U-T survey of home water bills for the 30 largest U.S. cities found that for 200 gallons a day usage, San Diego has the 3rd highest cost – 73.7% higher than the median city surveyed. At 600 gal/day, San Diego was again 3rd highest – 81.7% higher than the median city.Saving water adds up to rate hikesThe top CEO’s surveyed rank CA “the worst state in which to do business” for the 14th straight year.Best And Worst States For Business In 2018From 2007 through 2010, 10,763 manufacturing facilities were built or expanded across the country — but only 176 of those were in CA. So with roughly 12% of the nation's population, CA got 1.6% of the built or expanded manufacturing facilities. Stated differently, adjusted for population, the other 49 states averaged 8.4 times more manufacturing growth than did California.http://www.cmta.net/20110303mfgFacilities07to10.pdf -- prepared by California Manufacturers and Technology AssociationCalifornia was recently ranked as the 3rd worst state to retire in by Kiplinger. Easily the lowest percentage of people over age 65. Only NY and NJ are deemed worse.The 20 Worst States for Your RetirementThe 2015 median Texas household income is 13.7% less than CA. But adjusted for COL, TX median household income is 32.0% more than CA.https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/acsbr15-02.pdfandhttps://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/cost_of_living/Consider California’s “net domestic migration” (migration between states). From 1992 through mid-2018, California lost a NET 4.2 million people to other states. Net departures slowed in 2008 only because people couldn’t sell their homes. But more people still leave each year -- in FY 2016-17, we lost 138,195. Again, note that these are NET losses. Sadly, our policies have split up many California families.Senator Ted Cruz on Twitterandhttp://tinyurl.com/FY2017-NDMIt’s likely that it’s not the welfare kings and queens departing. They are primarily the young, the educated, the productive, the entrepreneurial, the ambitious, the wealthy (such as Tiger Woods) – and retirees seeking to make their nest-eggs provide more bang for the buck.NOTE: To see more such fact-based disclosures, go to my blog at Richard Rider Rants, or my more active Facebook “page” Richard Rider (“friend” me). The very latest two-page fact sheet Word file (this wonky handout) is available free upon "

This answer is generated by the AI Brain for the purpose of {I want to learn about bankruptcies:Here's the 10 largest bankruptcies in world history by asset value:01. Lehman Brothers BankruptcyBankruptcy Date: 09/15/2008Assets: $691 billionLehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was a global financial-services firm which, until declaring bankruptcy in 2008, participated in business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales, research and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking. It was a primary dealer in the U.S. Treasury securities market.02. Washington Mutual BankruptcyBankruptcy Date: 09/26/2008Assets: $327.9 billionOn September 26, 2008, Washington Mutual, Inc. and its remaining subsidiary, WMI Investment Corp., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Washington Mutual, Inc. was promptly delisted from trading on the New York Stock Exchange, and commenced trading via Pink Sheets. All assets and most liabilities (including deposits, covered bonds, and other secured debt) of Washington Mutual Bank’s liabilities were assumed by JPMorgan Chase. Unsecured senior debt obligations of the bank of were not assumed by the FDIC, leaving holders of those obligations with little meaningful source of recovery.03. WorldCom BankruptcyBankruptcy Date: 07/21/2002Assets: $103.9 billionWorldCom founded in 1963, it grew to be the second largest long-distance provider in the U.S. It was purchased by WorldCom in 1998 and became MCI WorldCom, and afterwards being shortened to WorldCom in 2000. WorldCom’s financial scandals and bankruptcy led that company to change its name in 2003 to MCI. The MCI name disappeared in January 2006 after the company was bought by Verizon.04. General Motors BankruptcyBankruptcy Date: 06/01/2009Assets: $91 billionGeneral Motors Company, also known as GM, is a United States based automaker with headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. By sales, GM ranked as the largest U.S. automaker and the world’s second largest for 2008. GM had the third highest 2008 global revenues among automakers on the Fortune Global 500. GM manufactures cars and trucks in 34 countries, recently employed 244,500 people around the world, and sells and services vehicles in some 140 countries.05. CIT BankruptcyBankruptcy Date: 11/01/2009Assets: $71 billionCIT Group, Inc. is a large American commercial and consumer finance company, founded in 1908. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009. The company is included in the Fortune 500 and is a leading participant in vendor financing, factoring, equipment and transportation financing, Small Business Administration loans, and asset-based lending. The company does business with more than 80% of the Fortune 1000, and lends to a million small and medium businesses. Like many other financial institutions, the New York-based small business lender spent years on a debt-fueled growth binge. But when Lehman Brothers’ failure drained the Wall Street liquidity pool, CIT was left high and dry.06. Enron BankruptcyBankruptcy Date: 12/02/2001Assets: $65.5 billionEnron Corporation (former NYSE ticker symbol ENE) was an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy in late 2001, Enron employed approximately 22,000 and was one of the world’s leading electricity, natural gas, pulp and paper, and communications companies, with claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion in 2000. Fortune named Enron “America’s Most Innovative Company” for six consecutive years. At the end of 2001 it was revealed that its reported financial condition was sustained substantially by institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud, known as the “Enron scandal”.07. Conseco BankruptcyBankruptcy Date: 12/17/2002Assets: $61 billionConseco, Inc. is a publicly traded holding company headquartered in Carmel, Indiana. Conseco, Inc. is not an insurance company. Conseco, Inc. is engaged in insurance and consumer finance operations through a number of subsidiary companies. As a holding company, Conseco, Inc. is a separate legal entity that is distinct and apart from its subsidiary insurance companies. On December 17, 2002, Conseco, Inc., (Conseco) along with several subsidiaries, including CIHC, Inc. and Conseco Finance Corp., filed for permission to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago. The company collapsed under a huge debt load resulting from a rash of acquisitions in the 1990s, including the $6 billion purchase of Green Tree, the nation’s largest lender to mobile-home buyers.08. Chrysler LLC BankruptcyBankruptcy Date: 04/30/2009Assets: $39 billionChrysler Group LLC is a U.S. automobile manufacturer headquartered in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925. From 1998 to 2007, Chrysler and its subsidiaries were part of the German based DaimlerChrysler AG (now Daimler AG).09. Thornburg Mortgage BankruptcyBankruptcy Date: 05/01/2009Assets: $36.5 billionThornburg Mortgage Inc. was an American publicly traded corporation headquartered in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1993, the company is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that originates, acquires & manages mortgages, with a specific focus on jumbo and super jumbo adjustable rate mortgages.10. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. BankruptcyBankruptcy Date: 04/06/2001Assets: $36.1 billionThis company, with its headquarters in San Francisco, was founded in 1905 and supplies natural gas and electricity to most areas of Northern California. This company did well initially and had gas power, several hydroelectric and steam plants. Under the electricity market deregulation, the company sold off its natural gas power plants and retained the hydroelectric plants. But with the selling of the gas power plants, the generating capacity went down and it had to buy power from other energy generators. The company had to buy at fluctuating prices and sell at fixed prices, which led to losses and eventually bankruptcy. In 2004, the company emerged from bankruptcy and established itself extremely well and was named one of the most profitable companies for 2005 on the Fortune 500 list.Source: 22 Largest Bankruptcies in World HistoryOn of the best models for bankruptcy prediction is Altman's Z-score:How to use the Z-Score?Strictly speaking, the lower the score, the higher the odds are that a company is headed for bankruptcy. A Z-score of lower than 1.8, in particular, indicates that the company is heading for bankruptcy. Companies with scores above 3 are unlikely to enter bankruptcy. Scores in between 1.8 and 3 lie in a gray area.Source: How To Calculate A Z-Score | InvestopediaAltman used data for manufacturing firms to develop the model.Calculation of the model’s Z-score is as follows:Z-score = 1.2(Net Working Capital/Total Assets) + 1.4(Retained Earnings/Total Assets) + 3.3(Earnings Before Interest and Taxes/Total Assets) + 0.6(Market Value of Equity/Book Value of Liabilities) + 1.0(Sales/Total Assets)The ratios capture different aspects of profitability & risk:Net Working Capital/Total Assets: Captures short-term liquidity risk.Retained Earnings/Total Assets: Captures accumulated profitability and relative age of a firm.Earnings before Interest and Taxes/Total Assets: Measures current profitability.Market Value of Equity/Book Value of Liabilities: A debt/equity ratio, but incorporates market’s assessment of firm equity value. Captures long-term solvency risk and the market's overall assessment of the firm’s profitability and risk.Sales/Total Assets: Indicates the ability of a firm to use assets to generate saleshttp://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-535-business-analysis-using-financial-statements-spring-2003/lecture-notes/class16.pdfGenerated by Brain

The president’s proposal has a decadeslong history. After the 1986 “amnesty,” when President Ronald Reagan traded increased border security for the legalization of 3 million unauthorized immigrants, the San Diego Border Patrol constructed a 10-foot welded steel fence along the 14-mile section of the border closest to the Pacific. In 1996, a new law provided funds for a second layer. Despite repeated requests from the Border Patrol for more, by the year 2000 just 60 miles of the southern border had fencing, almost all of which was in urban areas. Only San Diego had a second layer.After 9/11, border hawks launched another push for fences, with little success. Most immigration enforcement funds were going to a surge in border agents. But President George W. Bush’s push for comprehensive immigration reform, which would have legalized the unauthorized immigrants in the United States, gave the hawks their opportunity. In 2006, Congress approved the Secure Fence Act mandating nearly 700 miles of fencing on the border.The president signed on to the bill hoping to placate the secure-the-border-first crowd and obtain the humane immigration changes that he wanted. This sales job enabled it to pass with bipartisan support from the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The immigration reform never materialized, but fence construction was nearly complete by 2009, and there are now 617 total miles of physical barriers, 36 miles of which have two layers.Yet the hawks were not placated. They complained that there was no second layer in most places. They stewed that half the fence was just “vehicle barriers”-concrete posts that provide obstacles for drivers but not pedestrians. Moreover, the 317 miles of real pedestrian fences dramatically vary in height and quality. The Border Patrol uses half a dozen types of fencing materials-wire mesh, landing mats, chain-link, bollard, aesthetic, and sheet piling-just to control on-foot crossings. These barriers are mainly a combination of steel posts and bars supplemented in places with wire, ranging in height from 6 to 18 feet.Trump has been adamant that his wall will be built “ahead of schedule.” For that to happen, he’ll need to avoid the various legal issues that plagued earlier efforts. Entities other than the federal government-states, Indian tribes, private individuals-control over two-thirds of borderland property. Private parties own the vast majority of the border in Texas, and for this reason, roughly 70 percent of the existing border fence is located in California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Almost all of it is on federally controlled land.The Bush administration bullied property owners, threatening to sue them if they did not “voluntarily” hand over the rights to their land. It offered no compensation for doing so. Thinking that they had no recourse, some people signed off, but others refused. The government then attempted to use eminent domain, a procedure Trump has long defended, to seize their property, but the lawsuits imposed serious delays-seven years in one case.In 2009, the Homeland Security inspector general concluded that the Border Patrol had “achieved [its] progress primarily in areas where environmental and real estate issues did not cause significant delay.” One intransigent resident had owned his property since before the “Roosevelt easement,” which gives the federal government a 60-foot right of way along the border. He fought the administration, so the fence had until recently a 1.2-mile gap on his land. Border residents fought more than a third of all land transfers, in fact. Because the Constitution promises just compensation for takings, Trump can do little to speed this process.Native American tribes also have the capacity to stop construction of barriers. The Tohono O’odham Nation, which has land on both sides of the border, has already pledged to fight any efforts to build a wall there. In 2007, when the tribe allowed vehicle barriers to be constructed, the Bush administration ended up desecrating Indian burial grounds and digging up human remains. The new president would need a stand-alone bill from Congress to condemn their land. Senate Democrats can (and likely would) filibuster such an effort.Even federal lands can be problematic. In 2010, two-thirds of patrol agents-in-charge told the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that land management laws had delayed or limited access to portions of federal lands, for fence building or repairs and other purposes, with more than half stating they did not get a timely response when they requested permission to use the lands. In one case, it took nearly eight months for the Border Patrol to get the OK to install a single underground sensor.Water rights have also been a problem for the fence. A 1970 treaty requires that the floodplain of the Rio Grande remain open to both sides of the border. The Obama administration attempted to build fences along the river anyway, but the treaty and the river’s floods forced the barrier to be placed so far into the interior of the United States that it has many holes to allow U.S. residents access to their property. These also provide an opportunity for border crossers.At the same time, the fence can cause Mexico to receive too much water. Even when a fence has holes, which a wall would not, debris can turn the fence into a dam. Thanks to the barrier, some floods have fully covered the doors of Mexican buildings in Los Ebanos, across the Rio Grande, while producing little more than deep puddling on the U.S. side. The International Boundary and Water Commission that administers the treaty has rebuffed the Border Patrol’s attempts to replicate this disaster in other areas of the Rio Grande Valley.Fences or walls obstruct crossers’ paths, cutting off a straight shot into the interior of the country. But a barrier is not the permanent object that some people imagine. Natural events can knock down parts of a border fence. One storm in Texas left a hole for months. Fences and walls can also erode near rivers or beaches, as the one in San Diego did. And they can be penetrated: Some fencing can be cut in minutes, and the Border Patrol reported repairing more than 4,000 holes in one year alone. They neglected to mention whether that number equaled that year’s number of breaches.Much of the current fencing can be easily mounted with a ladder or from the roof of a truck. In some cases, border crossers can scale the fence without any additional equipment. One viral video from 2010 shows two women easily climbing an 18-foot steel bollard-style pedestrian fence in less than 20 seconds. Smugglers can even drive over the fence using ramps, a fact that was discovered only when a couple of foolish drug entrepreneurs managed to get their SUV stuck on top. (They took the dope and split.)A wall would probably be less easily damaged by man or nature. But in at least some areas, its impassibility could also become a maintenance liability. Border Patrol agents have told Fox News that a border wall would still “have to allow water to pass through, or the sheer force of raging water could damage its integrity, not to mention the legal rights of both the U.S. and Mexico to seasonal rains.” In 2011, for example, a flood in Arizona washed away 40 feet of steel fence.While not “impenetrable,” a concrete wall would impede efforts to cut through it. Trump has also claimed that no one would ever use a ladder to go over his wall because “there’s no way to get down.” After pondering the question for a second, he then conceded, “maybe a rope.” Nonetheless, the height might discourage some people from attempting to climb it, and it would certainly take them longer to do so, giving Border Patrol agents additional time to reach them.If not over or through, some crossers may opt to go under. Tunnels are typically used more for drug smuggling, but they still create a significant vulnerability in any kind of physical barrier. From 2007 to 2010, the Border Patrol found more than one tunnel per month, on average. “For every tunnel we find, we feel they’re building another one somewhere,” Kevin Hecht, a Border Patrol tunnel expert, told The New York Times last year. A wall would likely increase the rewards for successful tunneling as other modes of transit grow more expensive.Trump is unconcerned, asserting that “tunnel technology” will rule out any such subterfuge. Effective tunnel detection equipment is seen as the Holy Grail of Border Patrol enforcement, but the Homeland Security Department’s Science and Technology Directorate has so far concluded that no current technology for detecting tunnels beneath the border is “suited to Border Patrol agents’ operational needs.”But the biggest practical problem with a wall is its opacity. In fact, many Border Patrol agents oppose a concrete wall for precisely this reason (albeit quietly, given that they were also some of Trump’s biggest supporters during the election). “A cinder block or rock wall, in the traditional sense, isn’t necessarily the most effective or desirable choice,” Border Patrol agents told Fox News. “Seeing through a fence allows agents to anticipate and mobilize, prior to illegal immigrants actually climbing or cutting through the fence.”The agency is already desperate to switch out the nontransparent landing-mat fences in use in some places. These metal sheets were adapted from helicopter landing pads left over from Vietnam, and while inexpensive, they are ill-suited to their purpose. Popular Mechanics described these parts of the fence as “obsolete, in need of replacement,” noting that they “can be easy to foil since Border Patrol agents can’t see what’s going on on the other side.” If a wall slows down agents as much as it does smugglers and migrants, it provides no advantage on balance.To put it most simply, border barriers will never stop illegal immigration, because a wall or fence cannot apprehend crossers. The agents that Fox News spoke to called a wall “meaningless” without agents and technology to back it up. Mayor Michael Gomez of Douglas, Arizona, labeled the fence a failure in 2010, saying “they jump right over it.” Former Border Patrol spokesperson Mike Scioli has called the fence little more than “a speed bump in the desert.”The efficaciy of a wallTrump speaks with absolute certainty of a wall’s ability to repel entries, yet the efficacy of the existing barriers has gone largely unstudied. The president is proposing a project likely to cost tens of billions of dollars and to suck up many other resources, and he is doing so without a single evaluation of the barrier. Obviously, any obstacle to passage will reduce entries at the margin. But would other options work better?Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) of the House Homeland Security Committee failed to obtain an answer to this exact question from the Obama administration. Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) concluded in 2013 that “it would be an inefficient use of taxpayer money to complete the fence,” but he gave no indication of how he evaluated the costs and benefits. A 2016 Migration Policy Institute review of the impact of walls and fences around the world turned up no academic literature specifically on the deterrent effect of physical barriers relative to other technologies or strategies, and concluded somewhat vaguely that walls appear to be “relatively ineffective.”Fences can have strong local effects, and the case for more fencing often relies completely on these regional outcomes. Take the San Diego border sector, probably the most commonly cited success story in this debate.From 1990 to 1993, it replaced a “totally ineffective” fence with a taller, opaque landing mat fence along 14 miles of the border. This had little impact on the number of border crossers. “The primary fence, by itself, did not have a discernible impact on the influx of unauthorized aliens coming across the border in San Diego,” the Congressional Research Service concluded.From 1994 to 1996, Operation Gatekeeper doubled the number of agents in the sector to reinforce the fence, but this too had little effect on the number of apprehended migrants. (Researchers use apprehensions as a proxy for illegal immigration because they usually track closely to the number of total entries.) Instead, the apprehensions shifted dramatically away from the areas guarded by western stations at Imperial Beach and Chula Vista, where fences were built, and toward eastern stations. The net flow remained the same.From 1997 to 1999, when the San Diego sector was reinforced with nine miles of secondary fencing and even more agents were added, the numbers did finally slow. But looking at the apprehension figures, it appears that San Diego simply pushed its problem even further east, to the El Centro, Yuma, and Tucson sectors. Each agent in those places ended up apprehending more people after the fence was built than before.Ideally, we would perform the same type of before-and-after analysis of the impact of the Secure Fence Act of 2006. The problem is that those barriers were rolled out at the same time that Congress almost doubled the size of the Border Patrol, increasing it from 12,000 to 21,000 agents. Moreover, fences went up in many different sectors, making it difficult to isolate the effects. To complicate matters further, this period saw the collapse of the housing bubble, which caused a huge exodus of unauthorized workers back to Mexico.The Unintended ConsequencesThe numbers from this period also suggest that counting “reduced crossings” as a victory may be misleading. As the amount of fencing and the number of agents grew, the share of unauthorized immigrants entering illegally fell, but the number entering legally (and then staying illegally) rose.In 2006, the Pew Research Center calculated that more than a third of all unauthorized immigrants entered lawfully and then simply overstayed their visas. People who come to the U.S. as tourists or temporary business travelers are forbidden from working, so a small number remain after their visa expires to work under the table. For every three border crossers in 1992, there was one overstay. But by 2012, visa overstays accounted for 58 percent of all new unauthorized immigrants. A wall not only will do nothing to stop these people from entering, but it may actually incentivize more people to stick around without authorization.Using reduced border crossings as the standard of success also obscures the wall’s effect on the total population of undocumented residents in the country. Until the first fence was built in 1990, workers could circulate freely across the border, coming to harvest crops during the summer and then returning home in the winter. They crossed with a goal of bettering their lives south of the border. The 1980s had more total crossings than the 1990s, but because as many people left each year as arrived, the total number of unauthorized immigrants remained roughly constant at about 3 million. The true measure of of a barrier’s efficacy should be not the gross flow but the net flow, taking into account both entries and exits.Increased enforcement in the 1990s raised the cost to cross the border, which obviously prevented some migrants from crossing at the margin. In fact, the cost of a single border crossing exploded from $500 in 1995 to $3,000 in 2009.But increasing the price of illegal activity is law enforcement’s main measurement of success. The Drug Enforcement Administration would be thrilled to claim it had driven up illicit drug prices 600 percent in a decade and a half.But this strategy backfired. The increased costs and risks disincentivized people from returning home. In 1996, just as the secondary fencing was going up in San Diego, a majority of new unauthorized entrants left within one year, according to a study by the University of Pennsylvania sociologist Douglas Massey. By 2009-with three times as many agents, 650 miles of barriers, and constant surveillance along the border-an illegal immigrant’s likelihood of leaving within one year had dropped to a statistically insignificant level. Border security had essentially trapped them in.The illegal population grew in tandem with the increases in smuggling prices, which in turn paralleled the growth in the number of border officers. This process continued from 1990 to 2007, when the housing collapse finally set Mexican migration into reverse.Massey calculates that as of 2009, 5.3 million fewer immigrants would have been residing in the United States illegally had enforcement remained at the same levels as in the 1980s. He argues that a large guest worker program, similar to the one that the United States last had in the early 1960s, would reduce not just border crossings but the population of immigrants living in this country-seemingly a nationalist two-for-one.The Price TagCongress set aside $1.2 billion for the 700-mile border fence in 2006. It ended up spending $3.5 billion for construction of the current combination of pedestrian fences and vehicle impediments. In 2009, the Border Patrol estimated it would need to spend an average of $325 million per year for 20 years to maintain these barriers. The Congressional Research Service found that by 2015, Congress had already spent $7 billion on the project, more than $11.3 million per mile per decade.Of course, it hardly makes sense to look at averages, given that half the fence is inexpensive vehicle-only barriers. Of the 317 miles of true pedestrian fencing, the GAO found that construction alone for the first 70 miles cost $2.8 million per mile on average. In the more difficult, non-urban areas, costs grew dramatically: For the next 225 miles, they rose to $5 million per mile on average. In a mountainous region east of San Diego, they hit $16 million per mile. After about 290 miles, the GAO assumed the average cost for the final 26 miles would be $6.5 million.If Trump backs away from his promise or if Congress ignores his requests for new funding, he may choose to simply build out the existing pedestrian fence for the remaining 683 miles to reach his 1,000-mile goal. Using the $6.5-million-per-mile figure, Congress will still need to front at least $10 billion over 10 years. The entire fence would price out at $18 billion, accounting for inflation. Add in the costs associated with acquiring private land and building in less accessible areas and the price tag goes even higher.Trump, who still insists that his wall will be not a fence but an “impenetrable physical wall” of concrete, claims that it will cost between $10 billion and $12 billion. In early 2017, House Speaker Paul Ryan suggested that a similar amount of appropriations would be needed for the wall. Neither the president nor the speaker has revealed his methodology. But since we know that just building out the existing fence would cost at least that much, the wall will undoubtedly cost far more.Not only that, but the existing fences were relatively inexpensive to build because they were constructed from materials such as old metal from helicopter landing pads and built low to the ground in some places. Trump has criticized them for, among other things, their inability to prevent tunneling, their materials, their height, and their aesthetics. Trump’s wall would use, according to one engineer’s estimate, more than 1.5 times as much concrete as the Hoover Dam.For the full 1,000 miles, Trump’s 30-foot wall (with a 10-foot tunnel barrier) would cost $31.2 billion, or $31.2 million per mile, according to the best estimate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers. Two other estimates placed the construction cost of the wall in the $25 billion range. An internal Department of Homeland Security report from February 2017 concluded the project would cost $21.6 billion for “a series of fences and walls” along 1,250 miles of the border. And these are solely upfront construction costs. They don’t include ongoing maintenance, which has accounted for roughly half of the price of the existing barriers over a decade.The Economic DownsideDonald Trump has insisted from the start of his campaign that Mexico will pay for the wall. When he presented a proposal to Congress to fund the wall’s construction in January, he continued to insist that Mexico would repay the United States. For his part, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has said that he would refuse to pay for any portion of the wall, and the back-and-forth became so heated in January that he canceled a meeting with Trump.The U.S. president has remained vague about how this reimbursement will happen without Mexico’s cooperation, and his total lack of understanding of basic economic concepts may be contributing to his erroneous belief. “The wall is a fraction of the kind of money…that Mexico takes in from the United States,” he told CNN in April 2016. “You’re talking about a trade deficit with Mexico of $58 billion.” In other words, he seems to be saying that if the Mexican government does not give him the $31 billion or more that it will take to build the wall, Trump will tax America’s business with Mexico. White House Spokesman Sean Spicer intimated something similar in January 2017.Even if that were to happen, it is simply inaccurate to claim that America’s southern neighbor would be paying for the wall, since the revenue would be coming from U.S. consumers. If the United States imposes a tax on Mexican imports, then people in America buying Mexican goods, from beer to cars, will cover it. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said as much to Trump during a presidential primary debate in January 2016, explaining that the Mexican government “doesn’t pay the tariff-the buyer pays the tariff.” Evidently, the lesson failed to stick.Trump has also floated the idea of cutting off remittances to Mexico of unauthorized immigrants if the Mexican government refuses to pay up. His proposed regulatory method of doing this (claiming that cash wire transfers are actually bank accounts) is legally suspect, but even if it were licit, it would not cover the cost of the wall. Although Mexican immigrants annually send $26 billion to their families in Mexico, only half of the Mexican immigrants in the United States are here illegally, and the majority of the remittances from unauthorized immigrants would likely find a way home through means other than wire transfers.The ReasonPresident Trump’s wall would be a mammoth expenditure that would have little impact on illegal immigration. But perhaps that’s not the point. The campaign’s goal was to plant an image in voters’ minds of what making America great again would look like. The president’s goal may now be to create a symbol, an illustration of a nationalism that says to the world that although people of all kinds may want to come here, America was created by and for Americans.For those who are not nationalists, the wall is a problem. The direct harms are easy to document: the spending, the taxes, the eminent domain abuse, and the decrease in immigrants’ freedom of movement.Even if the wall fails to reduce illegal entries significantly overall, one byproduct of making it harder to enter is that people will choose to cross in increasingly dangerous points along the border (the president’s “natural barriers”). This objective was a purposeful Border Patrol strategy in the 1990s, and it caused the number of deaths to skyrocket as people perished in mountains or deserts. From 1993 to 2005, the number of lives lost in crossing rose from 23 to 500 per year. Since the border fence was built, the number has declined, but the death rate per crossing had more than tripled by 2012.Wasteful security has always been the compromise that non-nationalists give to nationalists to obtain a better immigration system, one that treats people humanely and allows more of them to enter and live here legally. The most optimistic case is that the president builds some kind of barrier and takes credit for the drop in illegal immigration that began a decade ago. Seizing victory, he allows some form of immigration reform palatable to moderate Republicans to pass.But agreeing to the symbol could be seen as conceding the principle behind it. If Trump understands the costs and the limited benefits of the wall, his true purpose may be to force his opponents to give in to the nationalist viewpoint and spend the ensuing decades building and maintaining its outward sign. Many Republicans, including the president, have adopted a “border security first” philosophy that requires certain metrics to be met before other humane reforms take effect, so the wall could simply be an attempt to move the goalposts for security so far that they can never be reached (especially if Mexico’s reimbursement is a criterion).Another possibility is that the wall serves as a grand red herring, forcing Trump’s opponents to focus on the symbol while he enforces his true vision in other areas. The president’s executive order mandating the construction of a wall also requires a crackdown on asylum seekers coming to the border from Central America. His order on interior enforcement renders nearly all unauthorized immigrants priorities for removal. He has still further orders planned to undermine the legal immigration system for foreign workers. And of course, he has tried to ban all people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering at all. As his opponents focus on the wall, the Trump administration targets immigrants from every direction.In a sense, the wall merely represents the Trump administration’s worst instincts and desires. It is harmful, wasteful, and offensive, but an ineffective wall is nonetheless better than the surge of 5,000 new Border Patrol agents and 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to round up and deport people that the president also wants. No wall has ever arrested, robbed, battered, or murdered nonviolent people, as immigration enforcement has. A wall will not create an interest group to lobby for itself, endorse nationalist presidential candidates, and demand more power and funding, as the Border Patrol union does.The wall is more than a symbol. It will harm the lives of thousands of border residents and immigrants while wasting billions of tax dollars. But in a world run by nationalists, the one small source of comfort for non-nationalists over the next four years may be the knowledge that it could be worse.CREDITS:David Bier (policy analyst at the Cato Institute): “Why the Wall Won't Work”Democrats aren’t saying no to physical barriers on the border. They are saying no to Trump.A Biblical Perspective on Immigration PolicyHouse passes resolution to revoke Trump's national emergency declarationUnited States–Mexico Border - Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American HistoryHere's What the U.S.-Mexico border looks like before Trump's wall