‘Now or Never’: Spending Bill Veto Is Trump’s Last Chance to Save Border Wall from GOP Subterfuge
President Trump may give away his political leverage on immigration this week as GOP leaders try to jam him on border wall funding and cheap-labor visa-worker programs.
This week, Trump will decide to either veto or sign the no-wall, multi-agency budget package for 2019, which GOP leaders have slapped together.
GOP leaders are urging Trump to sign the 2019 package by promising him they will pass a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending bill — with a border wall — after the election.
Several senior GOP leaders have openly said they will not fight the Senate Democrats’ bitter opposition to the wall, even after the election. The Senate’s draft DHS budget only includes $1.6 billion for border barrier work.
Likewise, the president’s White House Legislative Affairs Office has made no effort to halt the DHS spending bill, nor has there been a push for full border wall funding ahead of the budget showdown.
The 2019 funding package, which the House is slated to pass this week, would provide $607 billion for the Pentagon and $178 billion for the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, and Labor. But it does not include the 2019 budget for DHS or a single red cent for the border wall.
The DHS bill created by House GOP leaders includes $5 billion for the wall, but that pot of money is tied to a series of cheap-labor programs that are intended to block 2019 wage raises for Americans. Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS) put the cheap-labor agenda into the DHS funding bill. This combination means the House GOP leadership bill will provide some wall money if the president betrays his Inauguration Day promise to “Hire American.”
Also, by finishing the other agencies’ budgets before the election, GOP leaders hope to deny Trump any budget leverage that he can use to force a border wall deal with Democrats and Republicans.
The GOP’s anti-Trump, anti-wall, pro-donor move is widely recognized in Washington.
“It’s now or never for Trump’s border wall,” said Rachel Bovard, a D.C-based conservative at the Conservative Partnership:
Trump’s veto pen is the last measure of accountability for congressional Republicans before voters wield the ultimate measure in November. … Congress has played hide-the-ball on Trump’s border wall for the better part of two years, and that’s not going to change.
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/09/25/donald-trumps-border-wall-ignored-gop-leaders-pushing-cheap-labor-agenda/
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And while Trump has attempted to refocus the midterm elections on his populist, economic nationalist immigration agenda, the GOP Congress has signaled that, once again, they will not put up a fight for the border wall.
In interviews with the Washington Post, a number of GOP lawmakers, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-AL), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), and Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), signaled that they would not try to fight for Trump’s immigration agenda before the midterms.
Cornyn even claimed that a border wall would not stop illegal immigration, an argument that Democrats and the Republican establishment often make to avoid dealing with the country’s immigration crisis.
“People can climb over the wall or go under the wall or through the wall. We’ve seen that in different places,” Cornyn told the Post. “If it’s just unattended without sensors, without technology, without people, then it won’t work.”
Cole claimed the GOP Congress could not focus on Trump’s border wall because they must secure DHS funding.
“We haven’t given up the fight. But if it keeps us from doing other things that are pretty important, like defending the country, then I think it’s a fight not worth having right now,” Cole said. “Let’s get these critical day-to-day functions of the government done, and the American people will be expressing an opinion in the election. We’ll see where we’re at when we come back.”