Meanwhile, down at the border

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution is soliciting signatures from economists to a letter to President Bush on the immigration issue. The letter states that immigration has provided modest yet net benefit to Americans. He already has signatures from prominent economists on the left and right. That's the good news.

Meanwhile, in Washington D. C., the President and Congress want to build a hi-tech virtual wall along the border. Round up the usual suspects: large defense contractors. Here they are as reported in the NYT.

Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, three of the largest, are among the companies that said they would submit bids within two weeks for a multibillion-dollar federal contract to build what the administration calls a "virtual fence" along the nation's land borders.

These technologies have been tried with varying degrees of success and abject failure around the world. The oversight for this spending will come from Homeland Security, the agency we have grown to love and respect.

This once again indicates the complete failure of governance coming from Washington D. C. Instead of tackling the difficult economic issues that would benefit both American and Mexican workers, the government will buy some expensive gee whiz technology, and retire for cocktails with their favorite lobbyist and contractor.

Everyone's conscience is assuaged. And at least a few people continue to grow rich.

One is left wondering where the real border lies in this country.