Quote:Yes, absolutely, we should be more vigilant. But my question is, given that there are about 75 million foreigners who legally come into the country every year, and given that a person who comes in bent on terrorism isn't going to answer questions honestly if it means he'd get filtered out, then how exactly does this vetting that is being advocated work, and at what cost?


75,000,000 / 365 = 205,000 people per day entering the country. What kind of bureaucracy would have to be set up at what cost in order to do background checks on 205,000 people per day?


I know we don't want to kill the tourism industry. Foreign tourists bring in about $500 billion a year.


You say the cost being paid right now in Europe is more than you are willing to pay. I'm sure you mean the cost of not doing anything. How much are you willing to pay? Put it on a per person basis. Say we have about 100 million taxpayers in the United States right now. Do you feel so endangered right now that you are willing to send the government an extra, say, $500 a year to process all these background checks we'd have to do to vet all these tourists?


Before we embark on some giant government program like this, I want to know what they're going to do, and how much it's going to cost. (Not to mention, whether it's even going to work.)