Texas Has a Great, and Most Unusual, Economic Stimulus Package
A U.S. Border Patrol officer takes photographs along the Rio Grande River in Texas.
Photographer: Eric Gay/AP PhotoThis article is for subscribers only.
In Rio Grande City, named for the river that splits the U.S. from Mexico, footpaths cut from the brush by drug-smugglers and illegal immigrants have a new look, rehabbed into family-friendly hike-and-bike trails.
The town of 14,000, seat of the poorest county in Texas, put $80,000 into the project, and is spending $125,000 on a new park. It bought a vacant building for $1.3 million Monday that will become the new City Hall. Everybody knows where the money’s coming from, because they’re everywhere -- the border-patrol agents who crowd the most popular taco trucks at lunchtime and get their shirts starched over at Comet Cleaners.