Trump To Unveil $8 Billion Border Wall Funding Plan Tomorrow
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Thu, 02/14/2019
Having successfully passed the House and Senate, the compromise border security bill to avoid another government shutdown has wended its way to President Trump’s desk.
As he confirmed earlier, Trump plans on signing the bipartisan congressional bill and declaring a national emergency at the southern border to expand the limited border wall funding ($1.375 billion) in the bill.
As Bloomberg reports, Trump plans to use his unilateral authority to spend more than $8 billion to construct physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a White House official, a maneuver that Speaker Pelosi has already warned will likely prompt a lengthy legal challenge:
“The president is doing an end run around Congress, the power of the purse.”
The president will invoke an emergency declaration to redirect an additional $3.5 billion Congress approved for the Defense Department’s military construction budget, said another person familiar with the deliberations.
Trump also will use his ordinary executive authority to reprogram $2.5 billion from the Defense Department’s drug interdiction efforts and $600 million from the Treasury department’s drug forfeiture program, said the person, who asked not to be identified to discuss plans ahead of announcement.
The strategy avoids another politically risky government shutdown while allowing him to show his political supporters he has the will to build the wall.
The White House confirmed that Trump will address the nation with regard the Border Wall situation at 10amET tomorrow.
“President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action — including a national emergency — to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border,” White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
“The President is once again delivering on his promise to build the wall, protect the border, and secure our great country.”
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