How we can pay for Trump's border wall?

Of course this wall will be named after President Donald Trump.  There is no question about it.  But there is still the question as to who will pay for its construction.  The Mexican President insists Mexico will not pay for it.  Trump’s latest proposal was a 10% import duty tax on Mexican goods.  But who really pays a duty tax?  That would be us, the importers of those goods.  No doubt about it, WE will end up paying for the wall.  So is there a more equitable way for the U.S. taxpayers to fund the building of the Great Trump Wall?  Here is a tongue-in-cheek idea: Turn it into a major tourist attraction.

Walls are big tourist attractions.  Think of The Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall near the English-Scottish border, Jerusalem’s Western Wall, and the remains of the Berlin Wall.  And there are many more; the Incan Sacsayhuaman Wall in Peru, the Trojan Walls in Turkey, the Wall of Babylon in Iraq,  walled cities like Quebec, Carcassonne, Vatican City, etc.  Walls are big businesses attracting tourist dollars.  Hotels will be built near them.  Tourist buses carrying hundreds of tourists with cash will come daily.  Souvenir stands and taco stands and restaurants will blossom.  And these are all taxable endeavors.  The tax revenue can pay for the building and maintenance of The Great Trump Wall.

So how do you turn a wall into a tourist attraction?  Use your imagination!  There are 1900 miles of border between the USA and Mexico.  While you could fill it with advertising billboards and collect the advertising revenue, it would become more of an attraction if you turned it into a museum of billboards from around the world.  1900 miles of billboards.

Another idea is to white-wash the entire wall from one end to the other and allow graffiti artists from around the world to fill the wall with their artistic creations.  For a registration fee of course.  Then every few years or so the entire wall would be white-washed again and they could start all over.  Think of the tourist revenue it would generate.

Or how about a religious pilgrimage wall?  Hire artists to paint scenes from the Bible from one end of The Great Trump Wall to the other end – starting with Genesis and Exodus and ending 1900 miles later with The Epistle of Saint Jude and The Apocalypse.  This 1900 mile pilgrimage would be too long to walk in the hot Southwestern sun (unlike the 400 mile Camino de Santiago in Spain) but we could pave roadways and bicycle paths so pilgrims could travel the 1900 miles in a week or so by car or bike.  Pilgrim hostels, restaurants, and souvenir stands could be built every 100 miles or so.  There would be a small registration fee (tax?) but all the other income would come from the tax revenue generated by the hostels, restaurants and souvenir stands.

Do we need to be more ecumenical and less religious?  Instead of a Christian pilgrimage we can create a history pilgrimage with lessons about American Southwest history from one end to the other.  No interest there?  How about an amusement park pilgrimage?  Every 400 miles or so we could build a different amusement resort (Disney, Universal Studios, Six-Flags, Sea World, Busch Gardens) and families could pilgrimage the length of the 1900 miles, one resort at a time.

And to be fair, the Mexicans can do the same on their side of the wall – thus generating income for themselves. It is a win-win situation.  Be creative!