By Michelle Malkin · September 25, 2006 08:38 AM

I've already told you how underwhelmed I am by the GOP's empty, election-season, unfunded border fence gestures. Mickey Kaus detected signs of a Frist fence flake-out on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulous yesterday, and I think Mickey's radar is dead-on:

Has Sen. Frist given up on the border fence? It sure sounded that way on George Stephanopoulos' This Week. The Senate Majority Leader said a bill containing the proposed 700-mile barrier was "hopefully what we'll be voting on the floor of the Senate this week." But then, with a guilty, knowing grin,** he added: "Right now I got a feeling the Democrats may obstruct it."

The grin was the giveaway. It's easy to let the fence bill drop and blame Democrats. Wink, wink. But a forceful majority leader who actually wanted either a) a vote or b) a sharpened issue against the Dems wouldn't give up just like that. He'd call a press conference to demand that the Democrats allow a vote. Put a spotlight on the issue. Make Harry Reid come up with an equally well-publicized explanation for why the Democrats oppose this popular common-denominator measure. That would be hard for Reid to do without hurting Dem election chances, and he might not do it--resulting in a Democratic cave-in and a vote. And the fence Frist says he wants.

Why isn't Frist doing this?

Because the fence is a gimmick from Beltway Republicans who think they can appease pro-enforcement voters with an election-year throwaway vote.

Here's an article that just amplifies my point about the need to put up or shut up:

The House has passed and the Senate is debating legislation to build 700 miles of fence on the U.S.-Mexico border with no certain idea of how much it would cost.

Estimates range from $2 billion, cited by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., chairman of the appropriations subcommittee for homeland security, to $7 billion, the figure used by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Homeland Security officials told congressional aides it would cost about $5 billion. The department would not confirm that figure nor address the cost of the 107 miles of fencing already up along the nearly 2,000-mile border.

..."We're trying to figure out how much it will be, but we have been funding it," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said last week. In a vivid demonstration of how hard it is to come up with the money, Hastert played to the cameras at a news conference by slapping red check marks on a placard to show border security accomplishments by House Republicans.

He left two items unchecked: funding for Border Patrol agents and for a Homeland Security contract for a high-tech border fence called the Secure Border Initiative.

The Senate put $1.8 billion in a Pentagon bill for 370 miles of fence plus another 500 miles of vehicle barriers. But they shifted the amount to a homeland security bill, where some of the money will pay for additional Border Patrol agents and jail space for immigrants awaiting deportation.

"We need to make sure we don't have a shell game," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who is sponsoring the money for the fencing.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said that because a 700-mile fence can't be built in a year Congress can provide just some money for it next year and the rest in the future.

Lawmakers, however, repeatedly have passed legislation ordering increases in border security without the money to pay for them.

The 2004 intelligence bill Congress passed called for doubling the number of Border Patrol agents by hiring 2,000 new ones each year for the next five years. It also authorized building or expanding detention centers for illegal immigrants by 8,000 beds a year during the period.

So far, however, Congress has put up enough money to pay for only 2,500 of the agents that were supposed to have been hired by next September, and only half of the 16,000 new detention center beds called for by then.

Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and John Kyl, R-Ariz., tried to get $3.9 billion to pay for authorized projects or those sought by President Bush, but got nowhere. Left unfunded were new Coast Guard vessels and aircraft and a program for employers to verify that new hires are legally in the U.S.

A recent national survey found it will cost states $11 billion to implement a new federal law tightening rules on driver's licenses to prevent illegal immigrants from getting them. Congress is supposed to pay for some of it, but so far has come up with only $6 million for pilot programs.

"It's clearly a case of over promising," Cornyn said. "There's two steps. One is the authorization and the other is the appropriation and if appropriations don't follow, then it doesn't get done and that's been our track record."

...The House and Senate are trying this week _ before Congress recesses for the Nov. 7 elections _ to send Bush a homeland security bill with more border protection money, including for agents, detention beds and security projects.

Neither of the measures meets the targets of some already enacted laws. For example, the House would pay for 1,200 new Border Patrol agents, the Senate 1,000. Both are short of the 1,500 that would have to be hired to comply with the promise two years ago of 4,000 new agents by next September.

More empty promises, more broken promises. And the GOP expects grass-roots Republicans to come out to vote based on this?

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