Greg Abbott on Government Spending and Waste: A $3 Billion State Border Wall Left Unfinished, $11 Billion for Operation Lone Star, and a Voucher Program Projected to Reach $4.8 Billion

Greg Abbott launched the first state-built border wall, which cost Texas taxpayers more than $3 billion and finished only 8% of the 805 miles the state planned, in scattered segments, before lawmakers stopped funding it in 2025. His Operation Lone Star has cost more than $11 billion.

Abbott signed a $1 billion school voucher program in 2025 that the Legislative Budget Board projects will grow to $4.8 billion in 2030, and he urged Congress to finish the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which the Congressional Budget Office says will raise the debt by $4.2 trillion by 2034.

Greg Abbott's Spending Decisions and the Federal Law He Backed

• Abbott's State Border Wall Cost More Than $3 Billion for 8% of Its Planned Length. In 2021 Greg Abbott announced a border wall that Texas would build on its own, the first state to do so, held press events to promote it and raised more than $55 million in public donations through the governor's website, the Texas Tribune reported in June 2025. Four years later, 65 miles of wall, 8% of the 805 miles the state had identified, had been built in fragmented sections full of gaps, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $3 billion so far; the 30-foot wall costs about $28 million a mile to build, the report said, and in 2025 lawmakers quietly stopped funding new segments.
• Abbott's Operation Lone Star Has Cost Texas More Than $11 Billion. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in 2021, and by May 2025 the program's border security costs to Texas had passed $11 billion, KXXV reported. In its first seven months, the largest share of the operation's arrests were for nothing more than trespassing on private land, and the strategy did not appear to slow immigration, the Texas Tribune found with ProPublica and The Marshall Project in 2022.
• Abbott Signed a $1 Billion Voucher Program Projected to Reach $4.8 Billion a Year. On May 3, 2025, Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 2, which pays families $10,474 per student a year toward private school and other costs, with $1 billion in the state budget for 2026-27. Most accepted students, 57%, were already in private school or homeschooled, according to state data reported by Community Impact, and the Legislative Budget Board projected the program would grow to $3.3 billion in 2028 and $4.8 billion in 2030.
• The Law Abbott Urged Congress to Finish Adds $4.2 Trillion to the National Debt. On May 22, 2025, Greg Abbott said of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that "there is more work yet to be done to get this legislation to the finish line." The Congressional Budget Office estimated in February 2026 that the law raises the national debt by $4.2 trillion through 2034, and that higher interest rates from the law add $405 billion to federal interest costs, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reported.

What Greg Abbott's Spending Record Means for Texas Taxpayers

• Texas faces up to $2 billion in new SNAP costs in its next budget. Under the law Abbott urged Congress to finish, Texas faces up to $2 billion in added SNAP costs over the 2028-2029 state budget, the Texas Tribune reported.
• Texas's wall went up in scattered segments where the state could get land, not where experts said it would work best. The state wall is not a continuous structure but dozens of segments across six counties, placed largely where the state could get land rather than where border security experts said it would work best, the Texas Tribune reported.

Frequently Asked Questions About Greg Abbott on Government spending

Last updated: 2026-10-26

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