- Senate nuclear option: eliminate super-majority vote requirement;
- Reconciliation: relegates legislation to simple majority vote;
- Discretionary funding from multiple appropriated sources.
Senate Republicans can pull together, and with their majority numbers, pass a bill. But if recalcitrant Never-Trump’ers like Corker and Flake undermine that effort, there’s this…
…simply use existing appropriated funding: “Jason Chaffetz: Trump’s border wall may get funding after all (thanks to this dirty little Washington secret)“
According to former House Republican Chaffetz “Each year the government spends hundreds of billions of dollars on things that are not specifically authorized by Congress. Both Democrats and Republicans have been complicit in this practice.”
(bold, underline emphasis added)
And just think of the solutions an effective border wall will provide: protecting a Nation’s borders ensures stronger national security, reduces drug cartel efforts, interrupts human trafficking, reduces the dangers of harmful diseases, protects fragile environmental eco-systems from being trampled, and redirects manpower to find existing illegal migrants.
Slush fund appropriations for Homeland Security, Defense, Health & Human Services, even the Interior Department can be diverted, based on national emergency needs.
And, consider this: $5 billion sounds big, until it’s compared to the existing annual $4tn budget. 4 trillion is 4,000 billion…the $5bn being bandied about is 0.125% of it.
That’s right – 1/10th of 1% of the annual budget.
Considering the payback an effective wall solution provides, it’s crazy not to fund it.
Finally, an effective wall solution will discourage future efforts of those who use children as useful shields to try getting into America, with often tragic consequences for kids.
If nothing else, fund the wall…to stop this humanitarian crisis from continuing.