I have been warning you. The fight is on over the border wall.
Last week, the House of Representatives' Homeland Security Subcommittee approved a spending bill that would give 5B for the border wall.
We have been pushing this for months and Conservatives in Congress actually listened. The result was a spending bill that authorized hundreds of miles of new border wall construction and even more upgrades for current fencing.
However, we just received word from the Senate. The GOP is refusing to vote on the funding package. Instead, they are going to pass a 1.8B spending bill that includes no funding for new border wall construction.
And their reasoning is despicable.
Senator James Lankford (R-OK) is on the Appropriations Committee. He declared that the Trump administration would not get the 5B because it is "more than what they asked for and what they need and what they can get done in a year."
In his opinion, the American people don't need a secure border. Spoken as only someone with an armed security detail could...
Just a few months ago, the GOP was pushing a 25B border wall bill that would have completely funded the wall. Now, they are refusing to even fund one-fifth of that...
The truth, however, is much worse than that. The Senate GOP is caving and refusing to approve any border wall funding without amnesty attached to it. Mitch McConnell has completely caved to the left's demands.
Already, we are seeing House Republicans starting to backtrack as well. Seeing that the Senate is refusing to even hold a vote on it, powerful House Republicans are starting to question whether it is even worth fighting for.
Read that again: Congressional Republicans are starting to question whether funding the border wall is even worth fighting for.
We have been pushing for Congress to finally approve the President's border wall plan. To Trump's credit, his administration is working on renegotiating NAFTA to stop Mexico from taking advantage of the US on trade. That means billions staying in the country instead of going to Mexico.
When Trump said Mexico would pay, he never meant that Mexico would cut us a check. Fixing NAFTA and using the wall to shut down even just a fraction of the drug trade would pay for the wall 100 times over. But we need to get the construction fully funded NOW!
President Trump defied Congress earlier this year. He instructed 20-30 foot tall border walls to be built in California, New Mexico, and Arizona. We just learned that Border Patrol surveyors are on the scene in Texas to start planning wall construction there as well. Congress tried to stop any construction from happening. They thought they had defunded it all. Trump figured out how to move the funding around to get the projects started.
Now, Dems and Establishment Republicans are threatening to shut it all down for good. Not only block border wall funding from passing, but close the loopholes that allowed Trump to get started early.
We have a bill - the House's 2019 Homeland Security Appropriations package - that would fund more than 1/5 of the border wall. The full House Appropriations Committee is set to approve the bill on Wednesday.
The Senate GOP is refusing to even consider it and now Paul Ryan and the GOP leadership are intervening to stop the funding from being approved at all.
This is the surrender I warned you about!
This is the fight of our political lives. This will likely determine whether the border wall ever gets built.
The GOP is eager to make this another example of "all talk, no action." They want to be able to claim they honored their promises without actually needing to pass anything into law.
It is up to you to call them out on this!
The bill is making its way through committee. It would let President Trump build hundreds of miles of border wall next year. It would also authorize electronic monitoring of the rest of the border until those parts of the wall can be built.
Every year, thousands of Americans are victimized by illegal alien criminals. That's not to mention the thousands of Americans whose lives are being ruined by the illegal drug trade. If we can cut that down by even just a percentage, this would all be worth it.
The battle lines have been drawn. The GOP leadership in the House and Senate are trying to kill this border wall funding. They are relying on you doing nothing. That is the only way they can succeed. They're counting on you not paying attention to what is happening behind closed doors in these committees.
School children years from now will learn about this fight in their history textbooks. What do you want that lesson to be about? Brave patriots rising up and forcing Congress to fund the wall? Or the last nail in the coffin, opening the borders to all illegal aliens?
I choose to fight.
Will you?
Can't have a country without borders,
Joe Otto
Conservative Daily
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