It’s Laughable How Much Cheaper It Would Be to Send Illegals Back Than Approve Obama’s $3.8 Billion

◼ Former Congressman Ernest Istook (R-Oklahoma) has a plan to deal with tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who have arrived on the southern border in recent weeks: Fly them home. - IJ Review

From his column in The Washington Times:

At the unofficial reported cost of $250 per person per day, President Barack Obama is proposing we spend $1.8 billion “to provide appropriate care for unaccompanied children.” That works out to 19,726 minors for a year.
[...]
The $250 a day figure compares with the $667 one-way cost of an airline ticket from McAllen, Texas, to Guatemala City, Guatemala, according to both Orbitz and Priceline. The combined airfare for 29,358 passengers would be $19.6 million. That is one-half of 1 percent of President Obama’s overall $3.8 billion request.

Volume discounts and government rates would yield even lower fares. But even without discounts, sending everyone home right away saves taxpayers 99.5 percent!

It’s also closer to fly them from McAllen to Guatemala City than to Murietta, California. Only 1,297 miles compared to 1,549 miles. And no protesters.

In fact, as Istook points out, repatriation of illegal aliens is the only legal solution to this crisis under federal law...

◼ Have we really gotten to the point where the media is so desperate to protect this President that they're debating the "coach vs. first class" question while ignoring the fact that $14 million is way, way, way, way, waaaaaaaay less than $3.7 billion? - Herman Cain

On Tuesday, Tom Coburn (R-OK) went on CNN's Crossfire to discuss the Obama-orchestrated flood of illegals. The President wants $3.7 billion dollars to deal with the problem, but Coburn had a different solution. “For less than $20 million we can fly them all back - first class.”

The next day, Coburn made the claim again - but this time he said it would cost "under $20 million."

Well, the eagle-eyed fact checkers at the Politico weren't about to let such an egregious flip-flop go. No-siree-bob! They pounced with a story called "Coburn's tickets home just went up."

According to the worst website in the world, there's just no way Coburn could put every illegal in first class for the amount of money he was claiming. So he had to "revise his estimate." Busted!!

In a move almost as cowardly as President Obama's refusal to cancel a game of pool in order to visit the border crisis he created, "Coburn’s office did not respond to several requests for comment."