Posted on 12/17/2019 10:22:53 AM PST by Red Badger
House Democrats are unhappy with border security funding included in a massive government spending package poised to become law in a matter of days.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus confronted Democratic leaders Tuesday in a closed-door meeting about a provision in the fiscal 2020 spending measure that would provide $1.375 billion for the construction of a southern border wall. Democrats are also angry about language maintaining funding levels for detention facilities for illegal immigrants, as well as a provision allowing President Trump to maintain his authority to transfer existing federal funding to border security projects.
“I’m not voting for it,” Rep. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, told reporters after a closed-door meeting between Democrats and their leadership to discuss the upcoming spending bills. Rep. Ben Lujan, a Democrat from New Mexico, said he told Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat, “that she has to go find Republican votes” for the bill, and that many of the Hispanic Caucus’s members would vote against it.
The House is poised to pass the measure, divided into two bills, on Tuesday afternoon.
The $1.4 trillion legislation will keep the government funded through the remainder of the fiscal year and avoid a government shutdown set to begin when a stopgap spending bill expires on Friday.
The measure has prompted pushback from the CHC and other rank-and-file Democrats who do not support provisions boosting Trump’s effort to construct a southern border wall and to return illegal immigrants to their native countries.
The wall funding was part of a deal negotiated between the House, led by Democrats, and the Senate, run by the GOP, and Trump, whose signature is required.
“The Hispanic Caucus is not happy with the homeland security provision in the bill,” Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois said after the meeting.
Schakowsky said she wasn’t sure whether to vote in favor of the measure. “I have an immigrant-rich district,” she explained.
Democrats are touting the measure as a compromise bill with many important wins for their party, including renewed funding for the Centers for Disease Control to study gun violence, a boost in domestic spending overall, and an end to unpopular taxes on medical devices and expensive health insurance policies.
Trump had requested more than $8 billion in border wall funding. Instead, the compromise kept spending on the wall and other border security initiatives at 2019 levels.
“Many members of the CHC will vote against it,” Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas told reporters after the meeting.
“It’s true; there are a lot of Democratic victories in the spending agreement,” Castro said. “I think everybody appreciates those. But members of the Hispanic Caucus are concerned with the wall money, the high level of detention beds, and most of all, with the ability of the president to transfer money to both the wall and to the detention beds in the future.”
The measure can pass with Democratic defections because enough Republicans are likely to vote for it.
Some GOP fiscal conservatives are certain to vote against the funding bills, including Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican. Roy, long an opponent of massive federal spending bills, said he’ll vote against the measure because it continues to spend billions of dollars on the war in Afghanistan despite reporting about the military’s muddled mission there and no new clarification of the mission.
The conservative Club for Growth opposes both bills.
The Senate is expected to pass the measures later this week.
After the meeting, the Progressive Caucus announced its members would also oppose the spending measure due to the border security funding, which pays for detention facility beds. The group also opposes the "staggering" sum allocated for the Defense Department. The measure boosts Pentagon spending by $22 billion, to a total of $700 billion.
"We cannot and will not support more funding for President Trump’s immoral mass detention policies and unchecked and wasteful Pentagon spending," the group said in a statement.
That’s right dig that hole deeper for the swing state democrats.
The House should quit holding America hostage!
“”””””’The Congressional Hispanic Caucus”””””””
What did the The Congressional WHITE BOYS Caucus have to say about it?
They are revolting.
They resemble that remark...in the woids of Curly, nyuck nyuch nyuck.
Jimmy Carter must be reliving his glory dayS? When Iran held all those American hostages.
Yeah, they stink on ICE!......................(pun intended).............
They are pretty revolting.
They passed it....
I’m sure its not possible that they were planting a trap and it didn’t work
Of course they are.
After all, we’re poking at their chief source of votes - ILLEGALS.
You got to love the Democratic Party destroying itself.
Impeach the do nothing IMPEACHORATS!!!
they were hoping to impeach Trump outta the White House and take their chances on Pence going wobbly about signing the bill?
Dims are hopelessly insane.
Do they pay attention to the American people at all??
ILLEGAL INVADERS cost our country over $600 BILLION DOLLARS per year when all costs are estimated- including direct costs and indirect costs (such as a citizen’s family needing counseling when a drunk illegal kills a family member of citizen, lost wages, lawyer costs etc)
over $600 BILLION DOLLARS per year
A wall costs approx $25 BILLION- a 1 time fee- plus annual maintenance fees which might add up to a few million per year-
BUILD THE DANG WALL Already! We’ll save HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars every single year!
I do not know anything about the “Club For Growth”. Are they really conservative?
No they are the swamp .
They are open borders crony capitalists .
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