for hurns of thousands of government employees on the line, the nbc biz tech team came up with a list what else $5 billion could actually buy. for the cost of a wall, you could build and install a solar farm that could power 1 million homes. a lot of houses. if clean energy doesn t excite you what about bonuses? with $5 billion, every nurse in america could receive a $1,500 bonus. imagine that. or you could give that same bonus to every schoolteacher in the united states and still have $200 million left over. currently the epa operates on just an $8 billion budget. government could use the $5 billion wall request to increase the epa budget by 60%. not going to do that, though it seem. $5 billion would more than double the budget for substance abuse and mental health administrations that government agencies are tasked with redu reducing the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on