President Trump keeps telling his supporters that Mexico will pay for “the Wall,” but that Congress needs to fund a “down payment.”
This is absurd on its face. A down payment is used to secure a mortgage.
- There is no such mortgage.
- A borrower still needs to pay off a mortgage, principal and interest. It’s not free money, even if it were issued by Mexico.
- Given the massive amount of debt the US government already has, the so-called down payment would be paid with more debt.
Such language would seem to be intentionally confusing and nonsensical in order to hide the fact that the wall would indeed be funded by American taxpayers.
This is all so obviously true that it should go without saying, yet amazingly some of the news media is happy to accept this term and use it uncritically. Here is the Washington Times:
Mrs. Pelosi also said the president agreed to forgo his demand for wall funding in the bill. Mr. Trump said that is true but he will need to see a down payment for the wall in other bills moving through Congress this year, or else he will throw a wrench in the works.
Shameful.