Spending Talks at Stalemate Over Border Wall Funding
Trump claimed the wall will pay “for itself in two months.”
The government needs to come up with spending bills by Friday or the government will shut down. Border wall funding has halted the talks as disagreements between the Democrats and President Donald Trump continue.
Trump wants $5 billion, but the Democrats will not budge from their demand of only $1.6 billion.
From The Washington Examiner:
Democrats want to stick to the $1.6 billion for border security allocated in a bipartisan Homeland Security appropriations bill, which includes repairs to fencing, levees, and more money for tech. Some congressional Republicans appear ready to pass the larger government funding package, according to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., but Trump isn’t.
“Essentially we have agreement on what needs to be done, and it is simply the wall that is the major and principle item that is holding up full agreement,” Hoyer told reporters on Tuesday. “I’m hopeful in the next week or so that that will be resolved one way or another.”
A continuing resolution will probably go through Congress on Thursday, but if Trump doesn’t sign it, the government will have a partial shut down.
Roll Call explained that Trump’s administration “sent up to Capitol Hill a request to add $33 billion in fiscal 2017 funds to spending bills under negotiation, mostly for defense but also for border protection” and that same “request asked Congress to cut $18 billion from other nondefense discretionary accounts, which lawmakers rejected.”
In April, the administration then asked Congress “to add fiscal 2019 funds to its initial budget in keeping with the bipartisan budget deal reached in February.”
The Democrats support is needed because even some Republicans have balked at the $5 billion price tag. From Roll Call:
Some GOP appropriators are finding it difficult to back the full $5 billion request without seeing a detailed justification. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said last week she supports the $1.6 billion that senators included in their bipartisan Homeland measure. She said she doesn’t know why $5 billion is needed for the fiscal year that ends next September.
“The administration asked for [$]1.6 [billion]; we gave them [$]1.6 [billion] and they upped the ante,” she said.
“It’s irresponsible what he’s doing, and it’s holding all the other bills hostage, and he hasn’t even given us the information we need on the border wall,” added New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, Murkowski’s Democratic counterpart on the Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee. That fiscal 2019 measure is mired in a conference committee on four spending bills that got held back from finalizing an agreement before lawmakers recessed for the final stretch of the midterm campaign.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, “said Republicans are now pushing for $2.5 billion in wall funding this year, combined with an additional $2.5 billion to be allocated next year.” However, the bill doesn’t include anything that would give Democrats a second thought “like a long-term extension of the Violence Against Women Act or the chance to vote on a bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller.”
Trump tweeted yesterday that the wall will pay “for itself in two months.”
Could somebody please explain to the Democrats (we need their votes) that our Country losses 250 Billion Dollars a year on illegal immigration, not including the terrible drug flow. Top Border Security, including a Wall, is $25 Billion. Pays for itself in two months. Get it done!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2018
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Comments
Donald is an excellent negotiator. He’ll settle for $2.5 billion this year — and then come back later for the other $2.5 billion.
President Trump should demand the original amount of $15 billion, then walk away and get his veto pen warmed up.
Trump needs to stop playing games and shut the government down until he gets the wall funding
DOD is fully funded through 30 Sep 19 and that is pretty much all that matters at this point. Shut the rest of the gov’t down for as long as it takes. I don’t think the American people really care.
The D’rats still think it’s “business as usual.”
We shall see.
Taxation infrastructure should just supply a form that says how you want your money allocated, not unlike some donation organizations.
That way, instead of being ugly and evil, politicians would act more like fundraisers for their causes. Trump would raise money for a wall. Obama would raise money for health care, etc etc. Congress could do funding drives for certain issues as deemed necessary. Why is it always about seizing power to force part of the country to bend to one party’s/person’s whims?
“Trump wants $5 billion, but the Democrats will not budge from their demand of only $1.6 billion.”
Math says the difference is $3.4 billion. The Pentagon will squander that much on lost military equipment and wreckless accounting for construction in far off lands. Congress will piss away almost as much on martini lunches for a year and dopey grants to study why dykes are fat & miserable.
Build the damn wall, corrupt-o-crats! This lying crap weasel dance of promising to stop illegal immigration has gone on for 30 years. Eff ewe! Build the damn wall!
If not, then shut down the government and be thankful We the People don’t burn it down.
A fight worth having.
Shut it down if he doesn’t get the full amount then beat the Demorats over the head daily that they are weak on defense, border security, immigration, and drug smuggling.
Wait! Aren’t the R’s still in charge? WTF is wrong with them? Of course, the Dems will never give Trump anything unless he caves on one of their giveaway programs. Then the wall will cost two times as much if they pass it now.
“Wait! Aren’t the R’s still in charge?”
No. Paul Ryan is still in charge.
Shut the disgusting Anti-American Government down now, TRUMP.
Shut it down.
If we don’t build the wall and deport all illegals, NOW, we won’t even have an America.
Shut down the traitor Government.
Shut it down and then pull a reverse Obama and cut all funding for the Democrat give away programs. The incoming tax revenue is more than adequate to pay the bills.
The Donald is actually our last hope. Imagine?
Most of us who voted for him in realized this at that time.
Help me out here. How can we claim to have a country if anybody with an itch to come here, can come here? Without a border there is no country. Another blog post somewhere discussed Afghanistan, and claimed that calling Afghanistan a country was shorthand for “a place on the map where other countries aren’t”.
Funding for a border wall has nothing to do with money. If the people in Congress cared anything about the money, they’d end half of what government is doing, cut taxes, and balance the budget — they spend what they want to spend, whether,or not they have it.
The leadership of both parties in Congress want illegal immigration. If the didn’t want it, they’d stop it. It wouldn’t be difficult to rewrite the laws to eliminate any advantage to be gained from coming to the country illegally — and if there was nothing to be gained, they’d stop coming. The Democrats want them mostly to supply them with a never-ending stream of poor, ignorant, socialist-leaning and government-dependent voters. The people who control the Republican Party tend toward a globalist-internationalist view that there shouldn’t be borders, and many of their major contributors want them as cheap labor.
Trump is going to get nothing (at least nothing substantial enough to make a difference) — not because of the cost, but because Congress isn’t going to do anything to impede illegal immigration. If Republicans wanted to do anything about it, they’d have had a bill on Trump’s desk, ready to sign, as soon as he became president (and likewise for repealing Obamacare, and all the other things they promise, but never intend to deliver).
Take it all the way to the wall.
Look, I contacted Arizona, tried to donate lengths of pipe to drive as fence posts… I requested my only desire was to have them labeled as
” Standing tall for our Country…. Complements of A1 Industrial Machine & Welding ”
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