As much as I want to jump on the band wagon with this idea of putting up a fence across the border from the Pacific to the Gulf, I have to ask a question.

Why is it our problem?

Now work with me for a minute here. If the American people don't want the illegals (and that's what they are, illegal, not "undocumented aliens", not "migrant workers" and sure as hell not "yet to be legalized citizens of a foreign national origin") illegally crossing our domestic border, why is it our problem alone?

I want badly to go with the usual thought process of "they don't belong here if they don't come over the right way", or "our government is dropping the ball", but the problem I really have is with it being just our problem. Why isn't the Mexican government trying to stop the flow of citizen into this country? I have heard that the cost of this fence is in the 8 billion dollar range. Food for thought, that's 8,000 million dollars. What part of this unbelievable amount is the Mexican share?

Please tell me our idea of splitting the cost is not hiring illegals to do the work.  I know the Mexican Government is not going to put up a fight, primarily because of the millions and millions of U.S. dollars that flow back over to Mexico from the illegals sending it home. And I also know that the they owe us millions already, so we would have to loan them the money to pay their half anyway. But isn't this a probelms for both countries?

SO, I have a plan. Yes, I, an average everyday American will offer up a plan (something you seldom if ever hear from the left, they just like to point out a problem, show concern, place blame and move on).

We hear all the time how corrupt the Mexican government is, all the way down to the local policia. We hear about how poor the people are and how their economy can not offer enough opportunity  to promote social elevation of ones own state. Well, what if we lowered trade barriers with them, this would allow them to gain employment opportunities to help them make more money in their own country. WAIT! Didn't we do that already.

Now I'm not bashing NAFTA, but wasn't it once placed on display and sold to us as a chance for the Mexican people to rise from poverty and reduce the need to come here.

OK, bad plan. Let's look at the corruption down there. (Let's try to hold back on the Cheney/Haliburton/Libby/Delay/Bush and big oil references, because, I'm sorry, but compared to what's going on in Mexico, our government is so clean you can still eat off it. Besides, half of it's horse crap, and the other half has not yet been proven) We have to the south of us a country that claims to have a democracy. they vote in their leaders do they not. Well if the government is corrupt we can probably assume that their elections are fixed from the get go. My answer, send them Jimmy Carter. WAIT! We did that already.

Ole' Jimmy when down there and he watched the last election and didn't come back with a single complaint.

OK, another bad plan. So why is illegal crossing of the border our problem, because like so many other tough things in this world it falls to the strong, rich Americans to solve it.

So here is plan that will work. We get charged a fee for everything we send down to Mexico to sell in that country, not exactly the deal we made with NAFTA. ENFORCE IT! Second, we have all the block built down there for the southern perimeter fence by local manufacturers thus employing local people and all the block for the northern perimeter fence built here in the states thus employing local Americans. We build our side and we hire Mexican nationals to build there side, but instead of paying them with the usual cash, we pay them out of the money we were sending Mexico anyway to prop up their economy to keep in from crashing in the first place.

What does this accomplish? One, we fix NAFTA and make it fair, second, we put the people of Mexico to work on a public works project like the one the liberals claim pulled us out of our great depression, (actually it was the second world war, but that's not the point of this posting) third, we give the money directly to the people of the country, show good will by America and maybe give them a sense of pride so that the next time an election comes around they just might ask a question or two about what their government is doing for them. Finally, we put some economic pressure on Fox to clean up his own house, because now his people will be making money and paying taxes and they will want to know what exactly they are doing it all for.

One last point I nearly forgot. We all know that regardless which party is in power in Washington, our government wastes money like there is no tomorrow. We need to place the construction of our side of the wall out to a bid process ran by Wal-Mart. This is the only way to ensure that it gets built on time, on or under budget, and we can ensure that none of "big block" make excessive profits on it.

To fence or not to fence. I say we fence.