Remember that “tremendous”, “big league”, “beautiful”, “see-through”, border wall that Mexico was going to pay for?
You know, the one that Mexico has said repeatedly they can’t and won’t pay for? And the one that, as of right now, is just 8 prototypes gathering dust in the San Diego desert? And the one that Congress is really – really – trying to avoid getting too involved with because earmarking money for it effectively puts American taxpayers on the hook for financing a monument to xenophobia that will almost certainly have to be torn down one day?
Yeah well as it turns out, Trump has been privately whispering to the military about paying for it. And yes, I am serious.
LOL. what?
Trump Is Said to Privately Press Military to Pay for Wall: WaPo
— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) March 27, 2018
According to the Washington Post, Trump is all set to use the same “national security” excuse he used to justify the protectionist trade push to force the military to fund his border wall. To wit:
Trump, who told advisers he was spurned in a large spending bill last week when lawmakers only appropriated $1.6 billion for the border wall, has begun suggesting the Pentagon could fund the sprawling construction, citing a “national security” risk.
After floating the notion to several advisers last week, he told Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) that the military should pay for the wall in a meeting last Wednesday in the White House residence, according to three people familiar with the meeting. Ryan offered little reaction to the notion, these people said, but senior Capitol Hill officials later said it was an unlikely prospect.
Yes, “Ryan offered little reaction to the notion” – primarily because it’s absurd. And also crazy as hell. And also indicative of a further plunge into an authoritarian regime where everything the person in charge wants to do but can’t get done is couched in terms of “national security”.
Here’s more:
In another such interaction with senior aides last week, Trump noted that the Department of Defense was getting so much money as part of the $1.3 trillion spending package that the Pentagon could surely afford the border wall, two White House officials said. The Pentagon received about $700 billion as part of the spending package, which Trump repeatedly lauded as “historic.”
I suppose we should have seen this coming. After all, he used almost the entire press conference that accompanied the signing of the $1.3 trillion spending bill to talk about the military and national security and to brag about increased military spending.
And just hours ahead of that press conference he tweeted about not getting enough wall funding. So now he’s going to try and divert funds in order to fulfill his campaign promise.
This is supremely ironic. Here is a guy who has continually insisted that the military needs more money because the rest of the world doesn’t respect us anymore (despite the fact that we’ve invaded multiple countries over the past couple of decades, and despite the fact that U.S. military bases are scattered across the globe like McDonalds franchises) and now, instead of using the new money for the military to fund things that would ostensibly make the military stronger, instead he’s going to use a portion of the money to build a concrete Mexican-be-gone wall on the southern border.
The only stumbling block: Congress. Let’s go back to WaPo:
“Build WALL through M!” Trump recently wrote on Twitter. Two advisers said that “M” stood for military.
It would be unlikely for the military to fund the wall, according to White House and Defense Department officials. The president has suggested to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis that the department could fund the construction instead of the Department of Homeland Security, two Trump advisers said.
The Pentagon has plenty of money, but reprogramming it for a wall would require votes in Congress that the president doesn’t seem to have.
So let’s see how hard he pushes for this and in the process we’ll find out if lawmakers are prepared to take one more step down the road to authoritarianism by allowing Trump to start using “national security” as an excuse for anything and everything.
Great points Heisenberg. You are on to something.
The $#!+ going on inside the beltway is even shadier than usual (I know, that staggers the imagination) when:
– A 2K page $1.3T spending bill suddenly appears from nowhere
– It gets porked through Congress in less than 2 days
– Then it’s signed by the president – despite his early morning threat to veto it and then his post-signing press conference smokescreen a few hours later
“There are a lot of things that I’m unhappy about in this bill.” “I will never sign another bill like this again.” Right. But he sure signed this one!
The DC sausage machine can turn anything into a matter of ‘national security’ and find a clever way to make us pay for it.
“Ryan offered little reaction to the notion” — primarily because he left his balls in WI.
Best move is to just stall the dimwit and his wall. He’ll be in jail soon, and the new administration can use the few little bits he did get built for playgrounds or zipline towers.