Campaign Action
With most of Donald Trump’s projects, he’s rarely the one to pay the final bill. Whether it is creating a bogus charity to spend money at his own golf properties or using licensing agreements to put his name on buildings constructed with other people’s money, his cons are legendary. Unfortunately, his latest con is one that will hurt military families the most. When Congress refused to allocate billions of dollars to build an unnecessary wall, something the Constitution specifically states is within its powers, Trump stepped forward to declare a national emergency. The only emergency is that Donald Trump will never deliver on his central 2016 campaign promise, and he knows that will put his 2020 re-election in doubt.
With this new declaration, he is appropriating money from other areas of the government so that a mere 55 miles of new wall will be constructed ahead of the 2020 election. Where is Trump going to draw $8 billion from? $3.6 billion of it will come from funds that were intended for military construction projects—new and improved housing for military families, many of whom live in squalid conditions, including housing full of mice and mold. Only days ago, lawmakers held a hearing to discuss the conditions of housing for military families, and what the families described was the stuff of nightmares. From the Washington Post:
Crystal Cornwall, a Marine Corps spouse, told lawmakers about termites falling though light fixtures at an air base in Mississippi and mice chewing through infant pacifiers at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
And that is nothing compared to what Heather Beckstrom’s family has endured.
At Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Heather Beckstrom believes her daughter’s epilepsy, her son’s cancer diagnosis and her other son’s cleft palate are linked to the untreated sewer water from a chronically overflowing toilet that sent several inches of water gushing onto the floor. It occurred so frequently and forcefully, she said, that a water line was visible on the stucco from the outside.
Foreign Policy called the decision to divert these funds a “slap in the face to military families.”
“Having the president declare a national emergency in order to use [military construction] funding just days after a horrible SASC hearing on the terrible state of privatized military housing is a slap in the face to military families,” said Loren DeJonge Schulman of the Center for a New American Security. “The trade-off may not be direct—it’s not clear what the funding might have otherwise done—but it’s an ugly symbol of priorities.”
It’s outrageous that he would steal these badly needed funds from hurting military families. Why should these families continue to serve this country, living with broken sewer lines and toxic mold, just so this man doesn’t have to admit his central promise to voters will never, ever happen? A complete wall will never be built, and Mexico is never going to pay for it. Our military families are the ones who will be paying the price, and all of us should rise and reject this plan. The fact that these families are currently living in these conditions is the real emergency. This isn’t a partisan issue. Any member of Congress, from either party, who stands by and lets this happen should be held accountable.
And how will these projects be funded in the future? Trump plans to ask Congress to backfill these funds in his 2020 budget request. He probably won’t be around after 2020. Like so many unpaid contractors on Trump construction projects, it’ll be somebody else’s problem, and he’ll be back to cheating on his wife and playing golf full-time.