James O'Keefe-
TOO LATE!
Sharing Beau’s post here
I have seen indications that Trump has been pushing the Administration to get a big plan going for border barriers, all along. He is a boss by nature - he wants to see results from subordinates, or they get fired, on the spot.
I can’t believe that they don’t have primary, secondary and tertiary plans to make progress.
General Kelly, as Chief of Staff, is seen by President Trump’s side almost all the time. As a Four Star General, planning and execution are ingrained deeply into his bones. He was Trump’s first Secretary of Homeland Security, charged with building the wall. If Trump did not think he was handling it well, he would not have been promoted to Chief of Staff. General Kelly is now a specialist in the details of the wall , and is also a long time expert in how the Military spending works.
Let’s not forget, that as a Four Star, General Kelly commanded SOUTHCOM, which oversees Latin America, Southern Border Security, and JTF-B, the Counter-Narcotics effort on the Southern Border. These would be natural areas within DoD to fund construction of border barrier, if the Military budget was going to be used. General Kelly probably knows all the folks in SOUTHCOM who might be involved in wall building by their first names, and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.
After Kelly took Homeland Security and had some time to get briefed, he estimated two years of construction to get a reasonably effective border barrier up (I assume that was based on unconstrained funding).
With all the time they have had to plan and prepare, the continued high level emphasis, and the quality of the people leading the effort; money that is added now truly shovel-ready. I expect that vendors will be notified this week, probably Monday, of new solicitations being released for border barrier (the good stuff). It is just a question of how much. A few billion extra from DoD’s budget, and we would be off to the races. Really, 5 billion a year for two years would basically do the job.
501 posted on 3/25/2018, 4:36:10 PM by BeauBo (”)