Is San Diego Punishing Border Wall Contractors - or Themselves?

Oh, look. Government is picking winners and losers again. What a stunner.

But this time it isn’t the federal government, but one State and several municipalities within this State. If you guessed California, you win absolutely nothing except my admiration and knowledge that you are plugged in. Although certainly, my admiration is worth more.

The Washington Free Beacon reports that “San Diego is the latest city poised to join the list of California municipalities demonstrating their opposition to Trump's promised border wall by punishing businesses involved in working or even bidding on the wall prototypes or other border-wall projects.”

More and more cities in the Golden State are simply refusing to do business with any company who has or intends to have anything to do with the Southern border wall. If you are a construction company who built a prototype or bid on anything that has to do with Trump’s wall, you will not be allowed to work or even bid on any San Diego city projects.

Well, that’s a brilliant idea, for a few reasons. First: some of the most well-respected and advanced companies bid on and build wall prototypes. By ruling out some of the best for city projects, they’ve severely limited the pool of competent contractors. And second: this leaves the balance of less-skilled companies to jack up their prices while providing a potentially inferior product.

In other words, thanks to the majority leftist San Diego city council, and their juvenile “neener-neener” gotcha politics, projects are likely to cost more, take longer to complete, and quite possibly be less safe. But the projects will only be things like roads, bridges, city buildings and schools, so I wouldn’t worry if the best aren’t able to participate.

Lastly - at least some of these job-creating construction companies may end up frustrated enough to simply pack up, pick up, and move out.

Yet we shouldn’t be surprised by this latest bout of idiocy, or symptom of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). This is what liberals do – advocate and vote against their own self-interests. They are so overwhelmed with loathing Trump, that I’m sure not one of them has considered the potential consequences.

Of course, even if they have, these council members probably just assume that everyone thinks exactly as they do, so there will be no fallout. After all, they live and work in a bubble and have no inkling of the mood of the rest of the nation. They watch only CNN and MSNBC, read only the Washington Post and the New York Times, and visit only the HuffPo and Slate.com on the internet.

But frankly, when I learned of this, I was torn on what to think of this situation – discounting the practical fatuousness of their decision.

If this was a decision made by our federal government, I would say that this is clearly illegal - barring businesses due to a political divergence. But this is a city government, overseen by an even loonier State government. If I’m being consistent, I must, therefore, conclude that they have the right to run things as they see fit, as long as the decision doesn’t run afoul of the United States Constitution, which to me, it does not.

Thanks to the Tenth Amendment, States are the laboratories of the nation and have the right to be as stupid as they wish. Okay, so the Amendment doesn’t say exactly that. But in the case of California, it may as well.