“The Pentagon will restore $2.2 billion to military construction projects that were stripped by the Trump administration to pay for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border,” The Hill reported on Friday, June 12, 2021 (read story here).
The money that Trump misappropriated included funding for “an elementary school for children of military personnel in Germany, … another such school in Japan, … a Marine Corps machine gun range in Guam, … as well as numerous other schools, hangars, housing, shops and facilities.” Military.com provided additional details here about what the recovered funds will be spent on.
The Hill noted that “Trump had diverted billions in Pentagon construction, weapons and counterdrug funds … toward building the wall … after Congress refused to fully fund the project directly,” a clear abuse of power, as the Constitution plainly gives Congress, not the president, the final say over how public money is spent
But this is much bigger than how $2.2 billion of Pentagon funds get spent, and what they’re spent on.
Our freedom and self-government depend on a complex system of laws enacted within the framework of the Constitution, but those laws and the Constitution itself are mere words on paper, unless we all agree to live by them. Central to our system of self-government is that those exercising authority on our behalf abide by the rules of that system. But Trump held the separation of powers and constitutional restraints on presidential authority in contempt, and the Republican Party itself, by all appearances, is now withdrawing from that social contract.
Trump abused power in other ways, as well, and most of the GOP is following in his footsteps, endorsing or brushing off those abuses of power.
It’s time to protect ourselves from Republicans and their assault on our freedom, and our first line of defense is the ballot box. There are two things we must do: Defend our right to vote, and not vote for people who would take that right away, trash the rule of law, and destroy our democracy. This isn’t about policy disagreements anymore; those debates will have to be saved for another day. It’s now about whether our system of government, and the rule of law, will survive.
All this but no explanation as to how this money was retrieved. Presumably the money diverted from the Pentagon was actually spent on the wall years ago. Meanwhile there is a crisis on the border and Texas wants a wall…like now. (Arizona, New Mexico and even California rather find the wall rather appealing.) [This comment has been edited. Some material has been removed.]
The Hill article explains this money is from cancelled projects and hadn’t been spent yet. The causes of the border crisis are in the countries the migrants are fleeing from, so maybe we should try addressing those causes.