Thread: GOP leaders want details before funding Trump’s border wall

GOP leaders want details before funding Trump’s border wall

03/16/17 07:19 PM EDT



Republican leaders in Congress want more details from President Trump about his proposed border wall before appropriating significant funding for the project.

They have questions about the design and how the administration would handle the rights of property owners whose land would be used to build the structure.

“What I’d like to see is a plan that we know is going to be implemented that’s going to be effective before we start writing the check,” said Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas).

Cornyn said the administration needs to spell out “a layered approach” of “infrastructure, technology and personnel.”

He and House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who has jurisdiction over the wall, are in negotiations with the Trump administration to figure out precisely what they have in mind.

“We’d like to see what the plan is before we write a big check,” McCaul told The Hill on Thursday.

“We’re in current discussions with the administration. What is it going to look like, how much is it going to cost and how are you paying for this thing?”

Asked if he has received enough information from the administration, McCaul described the talks as “a work in progress.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last week that it probably wouldn’t make sense to build a wall — which Trump suggested during the 2016 campaign would reach between 35 and 45 feet in height — along the entire length of the 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

“There are some places along the border where that’s probably not the best way to secure the border,” McConnell said in an interview with Politico Playbook.

McConnell also said he didn’t think that Mexico would repay the United States in some form for the wall, something Trump has vowed will happen.

One of the biggest questions surrounding the wall is how to build it through along the 1,200 miles of border running through Texas, where most of the adjacent land is privately owned.

It could take years for the federal government to litigate the eminent domain claims necessary to build the barrier.

Trump’s budget submitted to Capitol Hill Thursday requests an initial installment of $4.1 billion for the wall, which GOP leaders initially estimated would cost $12 billion to $15 billion. The total final price tag for the project could run to more than $20 billion, according to other experts.

By requesting more information about the administration’s plans for a border wall, GOP leaders could buy themselves time and avoid a messy standoff with Democrats over including money for the wall in the government funding measure that must pass by the end of April to avoid a government shutdown.

Senate Democratic leaders warned this week that they would not allow the measure to pass if it includes funding for the wall.

They wrote in a letter to McConnell and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) that it would “be inappropriate” to include funding in must-pass bills needed to fund the government.

Democrats say the administration needs to answer questions about eminent domain procedures, the design and location of the wall and whether Mexico will fund any of its construction.

A senior Democratic aide reiterated Thursday that Democrats will not support a funding package to keep the government operating beyond April if it includes money for the wall.

Trump’s border wall proposal creates yet another problem for GOP leaders by calling for it to be paid for initially with cuts to non-defense discretionary spending programs.

His budget asks for $3 billion in fiscal year 2017 funding to pay for initial construction of the wall and improving homeland security — $1.5 billion of that total would go toward the wall.

The president has requested an additional $2.6 billion in fiscal year 2018 funding to continue construction of the wall next year.

Trump wants the money for the wall included in the government funding package that must pass by April 28, but GOP leaders are leery of giving Democrats an excuse to block it. A government shutdown fight would distract from their efforts to repeal and replace ObamaCare and begin work on tax reform.

The White House budget request puts McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in a bind because it calls for offsetting half the cost of a $33 billion supplemental spending bill — which includes $30 billion for defense and $3 billion for the wall and additional homeland security measures — with cuts to non-defense programs.


Democrats say this is unacceptable because it violates the agreement of the 2015 Bipartisan Budget Act, which set the spending levels for defense and non-defense programs.

Senate Democrats wrote in their letter to McConnell and Cochran that Congress has already agreed that any extra funding “should be divided equally between defense and non-defense priorities.”

“Is McConnell going to be an enabler and do what Trump wants or is he going to stand up to the president and tell him there’s no way Congress can pass legislation funding the government by the end of April if it cuts non-defense programs,” said a senior Democratic aide.

By delaying funding for the wall and perhaps the rest of Trump’s supplemental spending request until the administration provides more details about the wall, GOP leaders may be able to sidestep a fight with Democrats in the six weeks remaining before government funding expires.

Ryan reminded reporters Thursday that “we just got the president’s budget submission” and “this is the very beginning of the budget process.”

“What I’m encouraged by is the notion that we’re going to begin rebuilding our military, which is something we’re all very worried about, the hollowing out of our military,” he said.

The negotiating time leading up to the deadline to fund the government is compressed by a two-week recess that both chambers plan to take in the middle of April.

McConnell said he hoped to pass the House GOP’s plan to repeal ObamaCare, the American Health Care Act, before the April recess, but that now appears unlikely as GOP senators have raised a variety of concerns with the legislation.

Some GOP senators want the legislation to undergo hearings and markups in the upper chamber, which would delay floor consideration.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has said the House bill will be “dead on arrival” in the Senate.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3...ps-border-wall

I read somewhere a while ago that the money was approved for the wall years back and the money was available. If so where did the money go?

Some of it is still there, posylady, and that's what Trump is using to get this ball rolling on building the wall. There was also a lot of it wasted on those ugly ineffective "this is a joke" fences and those phony cameras that didn't work that the government wasted billions on.

Cut the crapola and high tech it along with manpower RIGHT NOW! Not interested in years of litigation over eminent domain, nor the pompous huge cement "Trump Wall". I am not buying in this geeky-techy age we can't have a sure security virtual barrier.

We wasted billions on that high-tech crapola that didn't work. Remember the suveillance cameras we spent billions on that didn't work but the contractor was paid anyway? The technology was defective. It would signal a security alert on a bird but not thousands of illegal aliens. GO FIGURE.

Start fixing the BROKEN DOWN existing fences and work out the details along the way.

It will not all be magically built overnight. Identify and work on the Sections that we can, and get the work crews on it.

Quit STALLING...get your butts down their and start building that Wall.

Where it is wide open...set up a sting operation to catch everything that slithers across the border and send them immediately BACK.

Originally Posted by artist

Cut the crapola and high tech it along with manpower RIGHT NOW! Not interested in years of litigation over eminent domain, nor the pompous huge cement "Trump Wall". I am not buying in this geeky-techy age we can't have a sure security virtual barrier.

"SBInet is the federal government's third attempt to secure the border with technology. Between 1998 and 2005, it spent $429 million on earlier surveillance initiatives that were so unreliable that only 1 percent of alarms led to arrests."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/16/AR2010031603573.html

"Project 28 was supposed to be an example of how we could use technology to secure the border. The lesson is we can't secure 28 miles of our border for $20 million," said committee member Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J. "After so many years of promises and tests and millions of dollars spent, we are no closer to a technological solution to securing the border. This is unacceptable. It's what's holding up comprehensive immigration reform."

http://archive.azcentral.com/news/articles/0228virtualfence0228.html

Virtual Failure on the Border

OCT. 30, 2010


It is past time to pull the plug on the “virtual fence” that the federal government has been trying to erect on the border with Mexico. The Secure Border Initiative Network — a series of towers with radar and cameras that is supposed to spot trespassers along most of the 2,000 miles of border — is a costly failure.

The $7.6 billion project (that was the original estimate) was championed by President George W. Bush in 2006 and initially embraced by President Obama.

The supposedly whiz-bang technology was plagued from the start by software bugs. Sensors and alarms were stymied by tumbleweeds and high winds. The cost kept rising and the delivery date kept slipping. Four years after being introduced — and with more than $1 billion already spent — barely 50 miles of the border has been covered.

This year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano halted new work on SBInet and diverted $50 million of its funding to other uses. She should kill it once and for all when the contract with its prime contractor, Boeing, ends next month.

The job of laying an electronic net over 2,000 miles was never going to be easy. Reports from the Government Accountability Office describe a meltdown by both government and industry.

Deadlines on deployment kept slipping, by years. The G.A.O. also said it was “unclear and uncertain what technology capabilities were to be delivered when.” It criticized Boeing for giving “incomplete and anomalous” evaluation data, leaving Homeland Security unable to hold the company to standards for controlling costs and meeting deadlines.

The “virtual fence” was a misbegotten idea from the start, based on the faulty premise that controlling immigration is as simple as closing the border — and that closing the border is a simple matter of more sensors, more fencing and more boots on the ground. So long as there is a demand for cheap labor, a hunger for better jobs here, and almost no legal way to get in, people will keep finding ways around any fence, virtual or not.

Border security cannot work unless it is accompanied by a real effort at comprehensive immigration reform. There is no getting back the $1 billion already wasted. We can avoid squandering billions more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/opinion/31sun3.html

Originally Posted by posylady

I read somewhere a while ago that the money was approved for the wall years back and the money was available. If so where did the money go?

If you're talking about the Secure Fence Act of 2006 signed by President Bush. That plan was gutted by the U.S. Senate with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas leading the way. From what I understand the majority of funding was directed elsewhere and the required double-layered fencing system was reduced to single-layer fencing and vehicle barriers. Of course as we've seen the single fencing doesn't stop anyone and the vehicle barriers are of no use against foot traffic. Furthermore, I've actually seen video of vehicles crossing the vehicle barriers by building ramps over the barriers.

Let us remember that everything obama touched turned to crapola - he and all his choices were incompetent. You have to have people that know what they are doing not picked for their assoc to multiculturism or any other favoritism. Remember also obama did not want to secure the border, just like catch & release while thousands came across the border weekly under jeh johnson - another example of a failed choice incompetent or planned to fail for the open border agenda?

We have institutes like MIT etc with very brite graduate, phd students that could be tapped for ideas to this project also but unfortunately they and their universities probably would be against closing the border as a project but should not have questional thoughts @ making the border secure thru technology - a national security issue. We also have private companies that should be pursued now that obama is gone. There should be a call for ANY modality to secure our border not just for a wall. This is the 21st century let's act like it is and not be chained to yesterday's methods.

A cement wall is not innovative enough for me & there will be complications, law suits, eminent domain, congress disagreements and already there are illustrations of how mexicans plan to build catapults to hurl man or drugs across any cement wall built- would like to hear of other ideas our industrial design companies could submit.

Most importantly, ones that can be implemented NOW!