The House Armed Services Committee is already on the record opposing the administration’s move in “reprogramming” Defense Department funds to build Donald Trump’s stupid border wall, but officials are pursuing it anyway, because congressional authority is for suckers. An administration that already feels it is above oversight has no qualms about continuing to sidestep Congress. The Washington Post is reporting that “The Pentagon will shift $1.5 billion for President Trump’s border wall from programs that include a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile system and a plane that provides surveillance and communications to fighter jets while airborne, according to a Defense Department document obtained by The Washington Post.”
If the administration feels that the Defense Department can do without that $1.5 billion in funding, there’s about a thousand other useful things it could go to, such as, oh, making sure schoolchildren don’t have lunch debt or reinstituting a program that kept migrant families out of detention. The administration ended that one because it was supposedly too expensive, but in reality, the Family Case Management Program cost “just $36 per day per family, compared to $319 per day per person for family detention.” A far cry from $1.5 billion.
Certainly those congressional Republicans who are constantly crying about national security will be the first to push back against the administration, right? So far congressional Democrats seem to be the only ones making a fuss. Reports the Post, “The reprogramming has angered Democratic lawmakers, who say it amounts to the administration sidestepping congressional authority to pay for a Trump campaign promise.”
It was really more of a racist campaign chant developed by various Trump aides to bash immigrants, and that’s all it still is. When the audience gets bored, bust out the old “Who’s gonna pay for it? Mexico!” the way an ‘80s artist busts out their one hit. It’s just that “Who’s going to pay for the wall? American taxpayers!” doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.