Donald Trump caved on Friday. It means that The Wall is very unlikely to be funded. Yes, I know that Trump is threatening to declare a national emergency. But here is the problem with that.
Declaring a national emergency only gives Donald Trump the ability to task federal departments to begin constructing The Wall. It will likely be the Department of Defense that will be tasked with that. But the fundamental problem remains the lack of money.
There is no money for The Wall.
Yes, Trump can shift existing funds away from certain federal departments, like Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, among other federal departments. There is talk of using Treasury Department monies, alluding to money confiscated from criminals, namely drug traffickers. The money that these departments can bring to fund The Wall is money that was previously allocated by Congress to the departments.
Also, ask yourself, when was the last time you saw a governmental entity give up money from its coffers?
Without a new allocation of funds by Congress, Trump would be taking money from the departments that requested the money to fulfill their mandates. By taking the money away from them, the departments are unable to deliver to the American people what Congress promised them.
But it gets much worse. As money is taken away from the departments like the Department of Defense, the projects in individual states would suffer forcing the governors to complain about the funneling money. Don’t think so? Remember the politicking going on during each cycle of the military base realignments that happen at Congress periodically?
That should answer any question you have about reallocating existing government funds for The Wall.
In addition to the governors and affected congressional districts, the federal departments themselves will fight to keep their monies to fulfill their obligations to the American people.
Trump may build a few miles of The Wall with an emergency declaration but by the time the legal challenges and the fight for monies settles, there will be no major wall construction and much less, a wall from shining sea to shining sea.
Trump has admitted this already.
In the end, there will be no pinche wall.
This makes America the country it is supposed to be.
