Posted on 07/14/2006 5:42:08 AM PDT by kellynla
Less than two months after voting overwhelmingly to build 370 miles of new fencing along the border with Mexico, the Senate yesterday voted against providing funds to build it.
"We do a lot of talking. We do a lot of legislating," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican whose amendment to fund the fence was killed on a 71-29 vote. "The things we do often sound very good, but we never quite get there."
Mr. Sessions offered his amendment to authorize $1.8 billion to pay for the fencing that the Senate voted 83-16 to build along high-traffic areas of the border with Mexico. In the same vote on May 17, the Senate also directed 500 miles of vehicle barriers to be built along the border.
But the May vote simply authorized the fencing and vehicle barriers, which on Capitol Hill is a different matter from approving the federal expenditures needed to build it.
"If we never appropriate the money needed to construct these miles of fencing and vehicle barriers, those miles of fencing and vehicle barriers will never actually be constructed," Mr. Sessions told his colleagues yesterday before the vote.
Virtually all Democrats were joined by the chamber's lone independent and 28 Republicans in opposing Mr. Session's amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Act. Only two Democrats -- Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Thomas R. Carper of Delaware -- supported funding the fence.
All told, 34 senators -- including most of the Republican leadership -- voted in May to build the fence but yesterday opposed funding it.
The overall bill, which appropriates more than $32 billion to the Homeland Security Department, including $2.2 billion for border security and control, passed on a 100-0 vote last night.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
That's $300M for the fence, and $1.5B for the "environmental study".
I suppose you leave your front door unlocked all night, right?
Nevada isn't a border state but Ensign did vote Yea. Reid of course voted Nay.
I called Ensigns DC office and expressed my appreciation for his vote.
Look at my new tagline.
If they spent 10 billion a year building the fence it would still be cheap. It costs Cslifornia taxpayers more than that each year to support the scum.
The vote is not surprising and I thank Senator Sessions for calling their bluff. In addition to all of the bad stuff in the bill (social security for illegals, phony requirement to pay back taxes, etc.), they never mean to do any of the enforcement, not any of it.
voting overwhelmingly to build 370 miles of new fencing along the border with Mexico, the Senate yesterday voted against providing funds to build it.
Why am I not surprised? The same thing will happen to funding immigration attorneys, Judges, jails, beds, support staff etc. Nothing is going to change folks, nothing.
One way or another the open border crowd will find a way to negate any legislation aimed at illegals.
Why are us conservatives pressured to to hold our collective noses and vote Republican? Sorry, but I think it's time they are taught a lesson, regardless of cost. Some times you just have to bite the bullet.
Once again, the immigration problem needs to be addressed with greater enforcement.
And you can be sure that any attempt toward greater enforcement will be nixed as well. They won't fund those either. Nothing will happen, nothing. I guarantee it.
There are few in congress who have the guts to put country first.
Do you have a fence in your backyard?
Does your neighbor have a fence?
It's high time to throw the sorry bastards in Washington out on their asses. They no more represent America than does the CCP of China.
"Common sense is dead to these people"
They work for BIG Business interests in both parties.
They could care less what the GOP grassroots thinks.
I hope Lindsey Graham gets his tail kicked out in 06
The White House has a fence.
Well said in only 6 words.
"Good. Occassionally even the senate gets one right"
Which right are you talking about?
The vote to authorize a fence in May?
Or the vote to not fund the fence they authorized in May?
"Cornyn" is NOT ON BOARD, he is a globalist pig, I wioll not be voting for him in 08.
Yeah, but they'll vote to spend a dozen times that to build a super highway from Mexico to Canada. Go figure.
A fence is a force multiplier. It allows you to protect more of the border with fewer guards.
To not build a fence is foolish. There is no way to pay enough $$$ to hire the needed number of border patrols to achieve the same amount of protection.
I saw that in the article too, but I am reviewing the Congressional record to see where this was put in.
So far as I can tell, those words were not added to the Sessions Amendment which failed 29-71. They were added somewhere else in the bill, which I have not found yet. When I do, I will let you know.
The opposition to the amendment was mostly due to the fact that the $1,829,400,000 would have been taken from other Dept. of Homeland Security programs.
If you want to take $1,829,400,000 from some useless government program and put it towards building a wall, well then yippie ki-yi-yay. But I guarantee you the Republicans who voted against the Sessions Amendment did so for that reason.
The provision calling for the consultation with the Mexican government is a different issue altogether.
I suppose one could also view the barrier, be it wall, fence, moat, or minefield as a humanitarian effort. Once it's up, there will be fewer illegals who who will risk the desert and die trying.
Phantom fences, phantom NG, and phantom intent to protect our borders.
Ridiculous ~ the cost is that the far leftwingnuts who've taken over the Democratic party will be marching everybody else off to a gulag.
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