Washington, DC (Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019 at 12:30 p.m.)—Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell announced this afternoon that President Donald Trump said he will sign a compromise appropriations  bill “even though it falls short of the money he wants, because he believes he has the authority to use preexisting funding to build more border wall.” McConnell said Trump will acquire those funds by declaring a national emergency, to try to seize money from other programs already funded by Congress. The president seeks to divert funds to build  the wall he included in his 2016 campaign stump speech, saying “Mexico will pay for it.”

The Washington Examiner reported that Democrats and some Republicans do not back the president using his executive authority to re-allocate funding.

In a press conference this hour U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the president is trying to “end-run the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Constitution.”  The Constitution designates Congress as being responsible for allocating the nation’s funding. Pelosi said, “let’s have the final vote first, and see what he does.”

It was confirmed this week that the U.S. national debt is now $22 trillion. The president said he wants $5 billion to build “a wall from sea to shining sea” along the southern border with Mexico. The compromise bill, to avoid a national shutdown just three weeks after the historic 35-day shutdown this winter, has allocated about $1.3 billion for a “steel slat” fence.

This is part of the February 8, 2019 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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