SECONDNEXUS
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George's Reads
President Donald Trump is desperately trying to secure additional funding to carry out his campaign promise of a giant wall at the Southern border.
Reports from the Washington Post say that Trump is planning to divert $7.2 billion in military funds to go toward building the wall.
If Trump does divert these funds from U.S. troops, he'll have diverted around five times more than Congress allotted for his wall in the 2020 budget.
The President continues to claim that his administration has built miles and miles of wall, but he won't admit that hardly any of it is new. The majority of the wall Trump touts as having built mostly constitutes repairs to already existing fencing.
This isn't the first time the President has diverted funds for border wall funding.
As the Post reports:
"Trump took $2.5 billion from military counterdrug programs for border barrier construction in 2019, but this year his administration is planning to take significantly more — $3.5 billion. Trump administration officials also are planning to take $3.7 billion in military construction funding, slightly more than the $3.6 billion diverted in 2019."
Democratic lawmakers aren't on board with Trump siphoning even more money from the military to build his wall.
Trump is abusing his power and ignoring Congress to build his ridiculous and ineffective wall. This is money that… https://t.co/jGAWRxnzO8— Rep. Barbara Lee (@Rep. Barbara Lee) 1579016641.0
This is pure waste that hurts military readiness and military families. We should be standing by our troops, not pr… https://t.co/GwW3B1eDTe— Rep. Katie Porter (@Rep. Katie Porter) 1578968788.0
BREAKING — An unconstitutional waste of money, stolen from our troops and counter-drug efforts, all in service o… https://t.co/akrMQMmRwi— Sen. Patrick Leahy (@Sen. Patrick Leahy) 1578971802.0
This border wall spending is: ❌>5X what's spent on Military Family Housing ❌~2X what's spent on substance abuse tr… https://t.co/D9ecmUemgk— Rep. Mark Pocan (@Rep. Mark Pocan) 1579016479.0
Trump’s wall is a WASTE and will NOT secure the border. Taking billions away from the Pentagon makes us LESS SAFE… https://t.co/bT70kiuejX— House Homeland Security Committee (@House Homeland Security Committee) 1578963386.0
Average Americans didn't want their tax dollars going to an ineffective wall either.
Since the vast majority of drugs into America come through regular ports of entry, a wall won't do anything to stop… https://t.co/DIi3hQtFOh— Judy Chu (@Judy Chu) 1579015043.0
By raiding Congressionally authorized money to fund his vanity project, the President continues to demonstrate his… https://t.co/zh620TZ8Ql— Becky W. Grossman (@Becky W. Grossman) 1579016605.0
I hope workers are slow-walking this as much as they possibly can. https://t.co/HTRqit52mU— s.e. smith (@s.e. smith) 1579014780.0
This brings the total of money the President has taken from the military & related areas and diverted to border con… https://t.co/FV7PLdJuvi— Todd Schulte (@Todd Schulte) 1579000592.0
The additional $7.2 billion Trump wants to divert from the Pentagon budget would be extracted, once again, from mil… https://t.co/QvcK7Sp25O— James Hohmann (@James Hohmann) 1578962482.0
. @realDonaldTrump is again endangering our national security for his vanity wall. It’s time to stop the madness!… https://t.co/CrMHPVU3oI— EmilyG (@EmilyG) 1578969415.0
The funding will also be diverted from counternarcotics programs.