Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:54 pm
Democrats are vowing to fight Trump’s move to steal $3.6 billion from military projects to fund his wall.
Sen. Durbin, Schatz, and Leahy said in a joint statement provided to PoliticusUSA, “Military construction projects are carefully scrutinized by Congress. We work with the military services to validate and review these projects thoroughly. It is vital that we balance their operational necessity with existing fiscal constraints. The President is robbing the men and women of our armed services of funds meant for critical construction projects that are necessary to serve our troops, support our allies, deter our adversaries, and care for our military families — all to build a wall that will do nothing to solve the humanitarian crisis at our Southwest border or protect the American people.â€
Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised constitutional concerns in her statement to PoliticusUSA:
The Administration’s irresponsible decision to transfer funds from appropriated U.S. military construction makes America less safe and dishonors the Constitution. The President is negating the Constitution’s most fundamental principle, the separation of powers, by assaulting our Congressional ‘power of the purse,’ and is undermining the oath of office we take to protect and defend the Constitution and the American people.
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Canceling military construction projects at home and abroad will undermine our national security and the quality of life and morale of our troops, making America less secure.
The President says that he is building the wall for national security reasons, but America should instead address the root causes of migration in the countries of origin. As our bipartisan Congressional delegation saw firsthand last month in the Northern Triangle countries of Central America, we should be strengthening U.S. initiatives. Yet, the Administration has decided to move critical funding from effective and proven counternarcotics and stability and security initiatives to build an ineffective, wasteful wall. This senseless decision will only worsen the underlying causes of migration.
The House will continue to fight this unacceptable and deeply dangerous decision in the Courts, in the Congress and in the court of public opinion, and honor our oath to protect the Constitution.
Trump thinks that building the wall will save his reelection campaign, but polling has shown that the American people have rejected Trump’s wall. Congress has wanted nothing to do with it since he took office, and the president has made the country less safe through his illegal action of moving appropriated funds for military construction to pay for a little bit of his wall. The wall won’t save Trump in 2020, as his illegal conduct is only hardening the resolve of a majority of voters to get him out of office.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
