A Fox News guest proposed that Trump supporters raise money for a border wall themselves after the president repeatedly vowed that Mexico will pay for it.
New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin made the pitch on Monday’s edition of “Fox & Friends.”
"Clearly the public supports strong border security. I think many people, I'm not sure the majority of the public thinks a wall is absolutely essential, but most people understand that a wall has to be part of the solution to border problems that we have," Goodwin said
"So is there a private way to do this?" host Brian Kilmeade asked.
"You can create a GoFundMe operation. Others suggest other ways, there is an existing effort called, I think, FundTheWall.com run by a sheriffs' association that’s raised some money, but nowhere near what is needed. And yet according to my mail, a lot of people are willing to chip in,” Goodwin replied.
“One reader writes to me and says 'if the 63 million people who voted for Donald Trump each contributed $80, that would get you near the $5 billion mark. I think that's the kind of thing that needs to happen. It could be a people's wall. I don't really care about the mechanism. Do you do a tax checkoff of your retirement account?" he said. "But the important thing is the public could step in and effectively do this thing that the president wants."
GOP Rep suggests using cryptocurrency: Along with Goodwin’s idea, Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson proposed using crowdfunding or creating “WallCoins.”
“You could do it with sort of like a crowdfunding site or you could do a blockchain and you could have WallCoins, but you could raise the money and frankly if we get it right at the Treasury you could even pay with Mexican pesos,” he said.
“There are areas that you would want to secure with a wall, and if you look at the areas where you have secured them with walls, $5 billion isn’t going to build a wall like the Great Wall of China, this is going to build secure fences,” he added.
Crowdfunding campaign has funded 208 feet of wall: The FundTheWall.com campaign Goodwin referred to is not exactly going great. Since September, the campaign has raised just $147,531 of their $450 million goal. According to their estimates, that would fund 208 feet of the border wall. The border wall is projected to cost up to $67 billion.
