Trump diverts billions in defense funding for border wall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS7Z1cwFuDI
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper has justified diverting nearly 4 Billion dollars from aircraft and other programs to fund a border wall with Mexico. President Donald Trump says around 200 kilometers of the border fence have been finished. The president ignored criticism of the shift in funds, and talked instead about how much was being built, as well as making claims about people trying and failing to climb it. Arizona where construction is in full swing, cutting through conservation areas and heritage sites.
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Wall Funding Timeline
-July 2019, the Supreme Court approved the reallocation of $2.5 billion in Department of Defense anti-drug funding to construct the wall.
-September 2019, an additional $3.6 billion was diverted, this time from U.S. military construction projects around the world, including schools for children of American soldiers.
-December 10, a federal judge in Texas blocked the use of military funds for building the wall but ten days later Trump signed a spending bill with about $1.4 billion allotted for it.
-January 8, 2020, a federal appeals court granted a stay of the Texas judge's order, freeing the $3.6 billion for the wall.
-February 13, 2020, the Pentagon notified Congress that it would divert $3.8 billion from the military's anti-drug activities and from the Overseas Contingency Operations fund and instead provide that money for the wall.
Wall Construction
-November 2019, while at least 76 miles of existing wall has been replaced or reinforced during Trump's presidency, no new wall has yet been completed.
-December 17, 2019, acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan stated that 93 miles of new wall has been built during the Trump administration; according to CBP figures, at least 90 miles of that replaced existing structures.
Military industrial complex is not pleased.
A $4.8 trillion budget that will include billions of additional dollars for his wall along the southern border and steep cuts to safety net programs like Medicaid, disability insurance and housing assistance. The president’s plan includes what officials described as $4.4 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade, with about $2 trillion coming from changes to safety net programs and student loan initiatives.
Those reductions encompass new work requirements for Medicaid, federal housing assistance and food stamp recipients, which are estimated to cut nearly $300 billion in spending from the programs. The budget will also cut spending on federal disability insurance benefits by $70 billion and on student loan forgiveness by $170 billion.
From needing only $5.7 billion to fund the wall it has bloomed to over $15 billion for the so-called wall, much of it replacing existing structures which some had blown over on a windy day.