You know when you open up your browser, and your homepage is set to MSN, and you see the most eye-catching stories right there in front of you, begging you to click on them? This happens to me every single day at work. Sometimes a few times a day. And, just like they want me to be, I get sucked in. I click, and click, and click, until half and hour is gone and it dawns on me that I need to get some actual work done. You know, the kind they pay me for.
Anyways, one title caught my eye that I thought needed some commentary. The title: “Up to $1,000 a day to care for child migrants.” What a title….
Of course I clicked.
You KNOW I did….
Good lord what is happening? I thought. I don’t want to get into border or immigration issues, or even a debate about our president. But seriously, how in the hell are they spending $1,000 a day for care for one child? Are we giving them gold toothbrushes? Caviar and water crackers, perhaps? This cost of illegal immigrants is staggering!
I don’t think I could spend $1,000 a day to care for myself, even if I tried.
This speaks to the gross mismanagement of funds by our government.
You knew I was going to go there, didn’t you?
Ummmm, yeah, Cuz it’s a PERSONAL FINANCE blog.
If we ran our personal finances the way this country does, we would be in some deep s*** Let’s look at an example, shall we?
I spend approximately $55.00 a day to house, feed, and care for my family. There are three of us, but let’s say for the sake of argument that the amount is just for one person. What if we spent $1,000 a day?
We would run a $27,000 deficit every single month. This translates into more than 324,000 deficit every year.
And we wonder how our debt is up over $15 trillion…..
If $1,000 is the cost of a child, what are the adults costing us? Just a though people, just a thought….
By far my favorite part of the article is that “Federal authorities are struggling to find more cost-effective housing, medical care, counseling and legal services for the undocumented minors.”
Really?
I could save at least half of that with my eyes closed.
Why on earth can’t the government get their act together?
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I really do not know a good solution to this problem. I guess your comparison does not involve you paying yourself to run your own household while the government is paying social workers, care givers, and who knows what else to watch after or take care of those kids.
That said, I am sure there is a more frugal way to do things than they are currently doing. The devil would be in the details I suppose.
Oh yes! Its mainly the inefficiency that drives me crazy! I don’t really want to debate whether or not we are taking care of the children. We’re doing it, so why is it so expensive????
You think it really costs this much to take care of one child? Doubtful. A lot of money never makes it to the final cause and gets diverted to other government funnels.
Plus, I think it’s inhumane to turn away children. I’m sorry. A lot of people may disagree, but at the end of the day, it’s children!
Unfortunately, I think you’re right about much of the money not actually making it to taking care of the children. I’m haven’t quite figured out my opinion of the whole immigration issues, but regardless, we’re currently taking care of the children, so why can we do it cheaper?
I really haven’t followed this too closely, but it sounds like they are housing the children in military bases. The cost of security and providing child appropriate resources somewhere designed for military training must be expensive. I’m sure they could find a less expensive, more appropriate way to deal with this situation.
That’s a good point – security and military base housing probably isn’t super cheap :-)
I would love to be able to live on $1000 a day :) I’m not saying anyone does, but who wouldn’t?
You and me both ;-)
This is a fairly misleading post. The article, for anyone who doesn’t want to read it, quotes 250 to 1000, for food, clothing, medical care, legal and counseling services, and clarifies that the 1000 figure is when they have to temporarily contract. In other words, when they hire private companies, who are supposed to be more efficient than government, right:), to take care of the kids when the gvmt servuces get overwhelmed. Granted, there certainly is, and always will be, some inefficiency in the government (most efficient thing to do is just let them in IMHO, but that’s a whole other post) but let’s put on our critical thinking hats. Think about what you do every day as a parent. Now pay someone else to do that, and bring in medical/dental/legal/social counseling and security (they are lawbreakers after all, right?) to boot. I’d be shocked if you could do all that for less than a grand a day.