Trump’s vow to build a wall hits a dead end, by Lesley Clark.
Donald Trump isn’t getting the “big, beautiful” wall he wants at the border with Mexico anytime this year. And it’s highly unlikely he’ll get it in 2019 or 2020. …
His last best 2018 hope was to hold up funding part of the government until he got $5 billion for the project.
But the votes for that sum, or for that matter much of anything involving progress on a wall, aren’t there. Congress is expected to end its year later this week by passing a stopgap budget that prevents a partial government shutdown Friday night.
The president’s other options for massive wall funding are extreme longshots at best. …
Not going to happen now. If there is no wall then there are effectively open borders, and if there are open borders the US isn’t really a country any more.
More telling was how on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell began pushing a plan to avert a partial shutdown. He offered a plan that would fund through Feb. 8 the nine Cabinet agencies and several smaller departments that could run out of money Friday night.
The plan seals off the last chance Trump could get money for his wall from the Republican-controlled Congress. Democrats will run the House for the next two years starting in January, and are adamantly opposed to giving Trump any money for a wall. …
Finding enough money for Trump’s ambition would be nearly impossible. Transferring funds within agencies generally needs congressional approval. … Democrats said Trump would risk running afoul of Article One of the Constitution which gives Congress the power of the purse. …
Outside government watchdogs agreed: “The president and the administration can talk about the military doing it all they want, but the truth is there is no money for the wall in the already enacted defense budget so they can’t just shift funds to build it,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of the budget watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Maybe a private fund raising drive is the only remaining chance? Shame on the Republicans for blowing it, while they controlled the Presidency and both houses of Congress for the last two years.
UPDATE: With No Path for Victory, Donald Trump Promises ‘Win’ on the Wall, by Charlie Spiering.
“One way or the other, we will win on the Wall!” Trump wrote on Twitter to supporters. …
Trump urged his supporters not to lose hope about his promise, even as Democrats prepare to take the majority in Congress in 2019.
Israel has walls almost right around the country now. No more illegal immigrants from Africa living in the poor areas of Tel Aviv.
