[TigersEye]

It sounds like another excuse to me. If it was simply a Constitutional check-and-balance in play then there would have been a good reason not to fund the fence. But there isn't so I think they approved it for good political PR and refused to fund it for some special interest.

It is certainly useful for politicians to be able to say they're "for it" or "against it" depending on what audience they're talking to and have something to point to for whichever case they want to make.

[21twelve]

“If it was simply a Constitutional check-and-balance in play...”

No - that's what makes it so disheartening. It is not constitutional checks and balances at all, it is political checks and balances. (Well, I voted FOR the fence before I voted against it).

Interesting how the writer uses that term (even going so far as to call it the “time-honored” method of checks and balances) - as if to make it sound like the constitutional idea.

I guess if authorization was made to extend the fence by 1,000 miles it would have been a “smokey back room deal”.