President Joe Biden is defending his administration’s decision to waive 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow for construction of roughly 20 miles of U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The funds for 20 miles of border wall were approved in 2019 before Biden took office. He urged Congress to reassign these funds for more intelligent and efficient enforcement purposes, but Republicans did not comply. Now, Biden has to fulfill his lawful obligations.
He waived environmental protections with executive powers to expedite the process. He isnt just passively letting this happen because his hands are tied.
Would those environmental protections have allowed the wall to simply not be built, or would they have just delayed it, costing even more money for environmental reviews, changed plans, etc., when a government shutdown is imminent?
That’s a real question, to be clear, and not one the article answered one way or the other.
Even if it were the case, as they said the budget is already allocated. Why not make them waste as much of it as possible paying for stuff that isn’t building the wall that everyone knows is useless? Making it look like even more of an expensive boondoggle seems like a better strategy than paving the way through federally protected lands.
And that’s setting aside the costs of maintaining what gets built or what it would cost to remove the wall at some point.
Excellent points. This is completely braindead policy on Biden’s part. The reality is he wanted to give this money to the contractors building the wall, and it’s pathetic crony capitalism per usual.
Genuinely curious why he couldn’t go ahead and fund the wall, allow existing environmental law to block it, take that back to congress and say this project is illegal and now it is up to congress to repurpose funds.
I feel like a more creative person would have built an 10 foot long section of wall (or better yet a really fancy gate) valued at whatever amount of money congress had allocated.
That would be like USPS getting $30million to replace a fleet of delivery trucks and instead buying a handful of monster trucks that can’t enter residential areas. No one’s gonna look at that and go, “whoops! You got me! We said buy 120 USPS trucks with the approved budget but instead you bought 5 monster trucks and a sweet set of ramps and said you followed the ‘spirit of the ask’ because they’re all trucks. Well, I see no reason to investigate this for misusing funds! As you were!”
It needs to pass an audit. The wall is stupid, but building a monument instead of a wall should fail audits and is a type of corruption worthy of impeachment.
I hope they stand for the rule of law. Mind you they should tell us when the law is wrong and fight to get that fixed. However they don’t get to ignore a bad law. There is often disagreement on what makes a good law, and sometimes you will lose that fight (or at least a battle in the fight).
The funds for 20 miles of border wall were approved in 2019 before Biden took office. He urged Congress to reassign these funds for more intelligent and efficient enforcement purposes, but Republicans did not comply. Now, Biden has to fulfill his lawful obligations.
He waived environmental protections with executive powers to expedite the process. He isnt just passively letting this happen because his hands are tied.
Would those environmental protections have allowed the wall to simply not be built, or would they have just delayed it, costing even more money for environmental reviews, changed plans, etc., when a government shutdown is imminent?
That’s a real question, to be clear, and not one the article answered one way or the other.
Even if it were the case, as they said the budget is already allocated. Why not make them waste as much of it as possible paying for stuff that isn’t building the wall that everyone knows is useless? Making it look like even more of an expensive boondoggle seems like a better strategy than paving the way through federally protected lands.
And that’s setting aside the costs of maintaining what gets built or what it would cost to remove the wall at some point.
Excellent points. This is completely braindead policy on Biden’s part. The reality is he wanted to give this money to the contractors building the wall, and it’s pathetic crony capitalism per usual.
He has to do it at the end of the year to comply with the order.
The end of the year is in 3 months.
Genuinely curious why he couldn’t go ahead and fund the wall, allow existing environmental law to block it, take that back to congress and say this project is illegal and now it is up to congress to repurpose funds.
He has to utilize executive fiat to circumvent normal environmental regulation procedures? What exactly do you think would happen if he didn’t?
Yep, let’s not forget who controls the purse. You just know this is going to get spun 🙄
I feel like a more creative person would have built an 10 foot long section of wall (or better yet a really fancy gate) valued at whatever amount of money congress had allocated.
That would be like USPS getting $30million to replace a fleet of delivery trucks and instead buying a handful of monster trucks that can’t enter residential areas. No one’s gonna look at that and go, “whoops! You got me! We said buy 120 USPS trucks with the approved budget but instead you bought 5 monster trucks and a sweet set of ramps and said you followed the ‘spirit of the ask’ because they’re all trucks. Well, I see no reason to investigate this for misusing funds! As you were!”
It needs to pass an audit. The wall is stupid, but building a monument instead of a wall should fail audits and is a type of corruption worthy of impeachment.
Presidents have to choose what they are going to stand for.
I hope they stand for the rule of law. Mind you they should tell us when the law is wrong and fight to get that fixed. However they don’t get to ignore a bad law. There is often disagreement on what makes a good law, and sometimes you will lose that fight (or at least a battle in the fight).
I think bad enforcement of a bad law is a great way to fight it.
you can only be so bad before you are corrupt.
You immediately answered the one question I had, thanks.