After listening to Senator Jon Kyl speak at the Heritage Foundation, I became resolute that our true national security threats are Russia and China. Sen. Kyl argued that our country needed to spend a lot more on new military technology and turn our attention toward our main opponents. Pelosi and Schumer have corroborated this opinion during several of their press briefings.
As I search high and low for any reputable institution that recommends spending nearly $6 billion on a wall from sea to shining sea, specifically anything that predates Trump's call for nearly that amount being added to the federal budget for a wall exactly, I cannot.
The southern border remains a point of concern. Immigration reform remains at the top of our priorities list, because we've been kicking the can for decades. The caravans are real, despite jokes from late night hosts.
But Russia's psychological warfare and China replacing us as the premier economic power in the world, from what I gather, are our primary national security threats.
And according to elected officials who are not named Trump, new technology should be the primary investment, with strategic barriers added along the southern border. The reason we say strategic in relation to these barriers is that the Rio Grande and other natural barriers are in already in place and somewhat impassible. When we add surveillance and personnel at these checkpoints, a wall is unnecessary.
This is the information I have gathered that I believe is true, based on my attempts to cross-check and verify everything I consider to be fact, or at least a general consensus. My sources in this post are a conservative think tank, a Republican Senator from Arizona, the two most powerful Democrat Senators, the President, the Department of Homeland Security, the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Secure Fence Act of 2006, real conversations with people who vote Democrat, real conversations with people who vote Republican, and years of digging into forums/networks/threads looking for bot/shill behavior, investigating profiles, and researching what Russia and China are up to, which in terms of human rights is really bad for both countries.
I'm trying very hard to know what's going on. It takes a lot of work. I can't fit these thoughts into a meme, and neither should you. We ruined the news by clicking on the wrong stuff, and now the information pipeline is littered with op-eds, listicles and misinformation.
But today, another Facebooker was nice enough to help me find the link below. He and another person were suggesting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was the original entity to request over $5 billion for the wall. I maintained that that number was solely Trump's idea. So we looked. And this is a great thing to read, even just the summary:
- The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rejected the Department’s specific funding requests in certain circumstances for additionalborder security technology and equipment and, instead, instructed the Department todramatically increase funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
- OMB instructed the Department to decrease its original funding request for border securitytechnology and equipment initiatives by approximately $175 million.
- OMB reduced the Department budget request for Remote Video Surveillance Systems (RVSS) inthe Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas. Despite its assertion that “surveillance inthe Sector is a continued priority,” OMB instructed DHS to request only $43.7 million for thistechnology – a $44.6 million reduction to the Department’s original request, constituting a cut ofover 50%. OMB acknowledged that reductions to RVSS technology are necessary “to offset thecosts of Presidential priorities not funded in the DHS request.”
- OMB instructed DHS to seek $1.6 billion from Congress “to continue construction of the borderwall in the Rio Grande Valley Sector” of Texas. The document indicates that OMB’s instruction toask for $1.6 billion is “$700 million more than the agency request,” representing a 78% increaseover the Department’s original funding request for a physical barrier along the southwest border.
Everything that I have gathered to be true concerning national security and our southern border is verified by the DHS. And Trump denied their requests so he could build his wall. So Trump's talks of making the money back from tariffs or whatever, which was already impossible since those are different departments, is very suspect – since it's confirmed he already tried to make room in the DHS budget for the wall.
His budget committee effectively told DHS they will pay for the wall by cutting funding for new technology and better surveillance over the Rio Grande. DHS recommends a number for the wall, and Trump increases it by 78%. But that in December 2017, was when the asking price was only $1.6 billion. When $1.6 billion was 78% more than the DHS thought we needed.
And where are we now? At almost $6 billion.
I told you that he kept increasing the number without any logic supporting the change. I told you it was a made-up number in the first place. I told you that everyone who seems to actually understand what is going on disagrees with him, including Republican and Democrat Senators – and the DHS itself.
What more evidence do we need on this subject?
The silver lining in the government shutdown is that it gave me weeks to figure out a single topic. Normally things are moving too fast to do this, so I am oddly appreciative of the shutdown. Because the beginning of 2019 has confirmed a lot of my suspicions:
1. The President is winging it.
2. The President is not listening to subject matter experts.
3. The President is a liability to our national security.
