FAIR WARNING: THIS week’s column is a deep dive into the inner workings of the House of Representatives. When you kick that rock over, goodness knows what will skitter out. In this case, it reveals some unsavory shenanigans to funnel money to President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall. If you’re for the wall, you’re thinking, “Good! We should be spending taxpayer dollars to keep illegal immigrants out of the country.” But, if I told you the money was going to come from the Pentagon budget, would that still make sense to you? Federal military troops are forbidden to engage in law enforcement actions – such as enforcing immigration law – by the long-standing posse comitatus prohibitions. (The National Guard is a different case, since its members are under the partial control of their state governors.) The federal agencies charged with protecting U.S. borders and enforcing immigration laws, like the Coast Guard and the Border Patrol, are in the Department of Homeland Security. And the president’s budget request for fiscal year 2018 includes just over $44 billion for the department. o, again, I ask, why should the Pentagon be asked to pay for a border wall? It seems to be a testament to the famous reason Willie Sutton gave for robbing banks: “Because that’s where the money is.” The Pentagon, with a total proposed budget of $639 billion ($574 in base budget and $65 billion in special “war” accounts), is where lawmakers can find the money for just about anything. But the House Armed Services Committee version of the annual Pentagon policy bill included a common-sense provision to make sure the Pentagon isn’t tasked with paying for the wall: “Section 1039. Rule of construction regarding use of Department of Defense funding of a border wall. None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this act or otherwise made available for the fiscal year 2018 for the Department of Defense may be used to plan, develop or construct any barriers, including walls or fences, along the international border of the United States.” A careful reading of this language (and that’s what we do at Taxpayers for Common Sense) points out this is a fairly broad prohibition. The armed services committees don’t ultimately control how federal dollars are spent. The Constitution preserves that role for the appropriations committees. But by saying “or otherwise made available … for the Department of Defense,” the House Armed Services Committee was foreclosing the possibility of spending any Pentagon money on this wall in a more comprehensive way. That was the plan. And at Taxpayers for Common Sense, we supported the idea. Enter the House Rules Committee. A little known congressional powerhouse, the Rules Committee is also called the speaker’s committee. It’s called that because the speaker of the House simultaneously served as the chairman of the committee until 1910 and, as the committee website says, “because it is the mechanism that the speaker uses to maintain control of the House floor.” The Pentagon policy bill, HR 2810, needed a “rule” to allow for its consideration on the House floor. The committee meets to consider the hundreds of amendments offered by House members, decide which will be allowed during House debate and determine how long that debate may last. And this is where we’re going to step off the cliff into the inner workings of the House, as I promised above. An amendment was offered by Republican Reps. Steven Palazzo and Trent Kelly from Mississippi (which has coastline but no land border) to strike Section 1039. That means Pentagon money could be spent to construct a border wall. In the normal process of things, this amendment would have been accepted by the Rules Committee and then debated and voted on by the full House of Representatives. But nothing about this amendment can be called normal. The Rules Committee took this one amendment and labeled it, “proposed to be adopted.” In the arcana of House rules, this means that voting for the rule governing consideration of the bill was also voting for this amendment. This is known as a “self-executing rule.” The ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York, offered an amendment to strike the self-executing portion of the rule and was defeated in committee on a party-line vote of 4-8. On the House floor, the vote on the full rule passed. And at the end of a long and exhausting day (and story), that means Pentagon money can be used to construct a border wall. Talk about governing under the cover of darkness.
I think disregard this article. Response to me from Cboldt
— I still haven’t found any language in the bill that supports it. —
Considering the article you posted, there are at least two bills involved. HR 1625, the omnibus appropriations bill signed into law yesterday, and HR 2810: National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2018.
Assuming your article is correct, and I have no reason to doubt this part of it, the proposed language forbidding DoD to build a border wall is missing from HR 2810. I agree. The language cited in the article is not in the National Defense Authorization Act.
You know how much I do not like the man south of us That being said:
While reading through the material again.
The December 21 declaration
The Reagan bill
And your letters to Mitch and Ryan
I remembered an article just before McConnell was elected about his extensive knowledge and understanding of the senate and our laws. It went on to say he was a walking encyclopedia
(It also mentioned how he had single handedly kept 80 judicial appointments out of the hands of the democrats )
This entire plan was organized, well thought out and executed. (Down to the expression on Trumps face after his mini totally unnecessary news conference.)
OUR president is a player. He knows how to read and manipulate people. Both his strength and weakness is he is NOT an inside D.C. Politician. MC Connell is and always will be. That is his strength (he got 17 confirmations through senate after the bill passed)
My thoughts by combining both of their strength they devised the plan. DJT didn’t have the legal background and Mac doesn’t have the charisma. It had to be done together. Q kept telling us follow the plan. They out alinskied the. Democrats. TEam Q used the Democrats own system that Obama devised against them.
I have much more respect for the legislative team than I did.
its what obama did for eight years and now since the dems dont want a real budget where money is spent pretty much how its allocated we can play the spending bill game as well.
Trust Trump! He will put the money where it should go.And if he happens to take money from the military it would be naive to think that he won’t replace it in spades.Give the guy a chance! He has already done most of his campaign promises and hes just getting started.
Formatting for readability is or friend!