President Donald Trump is expected to sign a compromise spending bill that rushed through Congress Thursday to ensure the government stays open past Friday night, according to news reports citing White House officials. He is also expected to declare a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border. The President is scheduled to address border security at a White House event Friday morning.
A national emergency declaration is sure to get pushback from Capitol Hill and perhaps the courts. But such a declaration would allow the President to move money around to build a border wall.
The chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate armed services committees are opposed to using military construction funding for the wall, as On Base has reported.
“I encourage the President not to divert significant Department of Defense funding for border security,” Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said Thursday evening. “Doing so would have detrimental consequences for our troops, as military infrastructure was one of the accounts most deprived during the Obama-era defense cuts.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection photo by Robert Bushell
Legislative Proposal Would Allow Army to Move Ahead on Backlogged Demolitions
The Army has proposed legislation that would allow it to lay out demolition and consolidation ideas for five locations over the next three years, Federal News Network recently reported. It has asked to spend up to $25 million at each site but did not name the sites....
