Americans will have to wait until after Christmas to find out if their elected representatives will ante up the $5 billion needed to get construction started on President Trump’s desperately needed multi-state border wall with Mexico.
Under pressure from the president, whose signature campaign promise is building the wall to beef up immigration enforcement efforts, the House voted 217 to 185 on Dec. 20 to approve a temporary spending bill after adding $5.7 billion in appropriations for the wall.
Trump has already compromised on wall funding. The wall project is supposed to cost $25 billion. Trump is only demanding one-fifth of that sum –$5 billion— right now to get construction on the border started.
Naturally, senators responded to the national emergency by leaving town. As a result, a quarter or less of the federal government shut down Saturday at 12:01 a.m.
On Friday, President Trump called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to overhaul the Senate’s filibuster rule to allow the spending measure to pass.
“Mitch, use the Nuclear Option and get it done! Our Country is counting on you!” Trump tweeted, using congressional jargon for overhauling the filibuster so legislation can be approved with 51 votes, instead of the current 60.
Instead of empowering Republicans to pass the bill, McConnell opted to let minority Democrats continue to wield a veto over the bill and hold the wall project hostage to placate that party’s radical left-wing base.
He made it clear that he prefers archaic parliamentary arcana over doing what’s needed to guarantee American sovereignty.
Read the rest from Matthew Vadum HERE.
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