Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) cautioned against the efficacy of President Donald Trump's proposed border wall, saying that the price tag for the project might exceed its utility.
Paul on Trump's proposed border wall: "I remain a fiscal conservative even on the wall ... I'm still a believer that we don't have money to spend" https://t.co/SFuI1PhXhG
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) January 10, 2018
"I remain a fiscal conservative even on the wall," he told Wolf Blitzer on CNN, "so I'm not excited about spending $20, $30, $40 billion on a wall. I'm still a believer that we don't have money to spend, we're $700 billion in the hole."
"I heard from somebody yesterday that we build 2,700 miles of concrete barriers on our interstates, you know those noise control barriers?" He explained. "We've done that for $2 billion."
"So I think the price tag should be debated, and I think we can have barriers, and we will have barriers in certain places," he added. "I think we should also use technology, which is less expensive, but the barriers, I think we need to look at the cost of them. The people advocating for it are forgetting that they're fiscally conservative and they're just giving enormous numbers."
"So yes, I would look at the number very carefully," he concluded, "and while I will vote for money for barriers, I'm not voting for $40 billion for barriers."
President Trump had said many times before the election that he was promising a physical wall, not a "virtual wall," but after the election he has made comments admitting that he was open to the idea of a barrier that used technology instead of a physical wall.
