by Chris Black
If the Blue Wave becomes a reality in November and the Republicans get massacred in the mid-terms, the reason for this will be Trump signing the gargantuan 1.3 billion dollars omnibus spending bill last Friday. By signing that piece of legislation, the POTUS made his biggest mistake in his young presidency. Cue Homer Simpson voice: “his biggest mistake, so far”!
Besides the depressing fact that the GOP spending package will create a huge deficit in 2018 (almost a trillion dollars), next year it will add another trillion to US national debt, which means that we keep on spending money like there’s no tomorrow, just like Barry Obama did during his 2 terms in office. It is projected that our national debt will reach and surpass 23 trillion dollars in 2019, and these are Greece like debt levels. And the most depressing thing is that we’re sitting on a Republican made/owned debt bomb, as the GOP controls everything: both houses of the Congress and the Presidency.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but speaking of big deficits, runaway spending and high debt, didn’t we think trillion dollar deficits were a thing of the past after Barry’s failed presidency, enter the Trump Train and all that? Make America Great Again? What happened?
It’s true that the omnibus spending bill was created by the notorious RINOs McConnel and Ryan colluding with the left, who deliberately mortgaged the future of our children and their children’s children, but Trump put his name on the bill, though he could’ve vetoed it: fiat justitia, ruat caelum. While Democrats got almost everything they asked for, such as generous funding for various welfare programs and pork-barrel projects, sanctuary cities and for that monstrosity called Planned Parenthood, including 30 billion to build a tunnel and a bridge linking New York City to Newark/NJ, Trump and his base got the ugly end of the stick. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.
Chuck Schumer got a bridge, but we didn’t get our wall. Trump should’ve vetoed the omnibus spending bill and shut the government down, demanding the Congress to appropriate funding for his core promise of his presidential campaign: a wall at the Mexico border. And he should’ve done it in a manicheistic manner: No wall, no bill. Even Trump admitted at the time that the bill contains a lot of wasteful spending, and he’ll never do it again. That’s actually correct, because the DEMs will sweep the midterms and he’ll get impeached, to quote Ann Coulter.
You know what’s most depressing about this story? Unless there’s a secret 3D Chess move from the God Emperor, such as a secret plan to get his funding for the wall from Pentagon’s historically inflated budget via covert means, Trump basically signed his political death warrant last Friday. If the POTUS doesn’t start building his proverbial big, beautiful wall by November, the Democrats will regain control of the Congress and the country will plunge in a constitutional crisis. Obviously, with DEMs in control, Trump will never get another shot at the wall, as he’ll get impeached in the House and he’ll spend the rest of his first (and only) term defending himself (bye bye MAGA agenda), and you can take this to the bank.
According to Trump aides, the POTUS acknowledged he made a huge mistake, and now fears his people are not going to come out in big numbers in November, because he got outmaneuvered by Ryan, McConnel, Schumer and Pelosi. And he’s now telling people around him his instincts were telling him that’s a bad deal, that he should vetoed it, but he didn’t, because he listened to his generals Mattis and Kelly, and he’s now in a pickle. The word is the POTUS had a meeting with Paul RINO Ryan last Wednesday, and he told Ryan: look, you guys are not giving me funding for my wall, so I’m gonna get the money (25 billion) from the 700 billion budget of the military to fund my wall. Ryan didn’t blink, he didn’t say yes, he didn’t say no, just avoided the topic like it was the plague. Then, Trump met with Mattis and asked the military, the Pentagon and Mattis in particular, to provide him with 25 billion from the 700 bn budget to go towards his wall, which is part of our country’s national defense, keeping out drugs and criminals/terrorists from sneaking through the southern border. As per Trump aides, Mattis told Trump that the money is allocated for the military, and for military purposes only. The wall is “a police style operation”, end quote, hence Trump will get “nada”. Trump is now trying to convince the Pentagon chiefs that he needs the army core of engineers to build the wall. And they’re saying no way. They will not back Trump; furthermore, as Trump is struggling to get the money, Chuck Schumer has come out and said that he’s threatening a law suit if the POTUS uses the Pentagon budget to redirect and appropriate it for the border wall. “This will be a blatant misuse of military funds, and would be tied up in court for years. Defense secretary Mattis ought not bother, and instead use the money to help our troops rather than advance the POTUS’ political fantasies” end quote (from WaPo).
What’s worse is that the omnibus bill passed by Ryan, McConnell, Pelosi and Schumer boxed Trump in, as in it expressly forbids (as in bans) Trump from using any money in the bill to go towards any kind of a concrete-made barrier. So they effectively tied his hands. The only way Trump could fund his wall would be to go to Congress again and get a budgetary amendment that allows him to take 25 billion from the Pentagon’s 700 billion budget, and then use it for building the wall. And such a budgetary amendment would require 60 votes in the Senate. Long story short, it will never happen. He can’t get 51 from his own party. Best case scenario, even if the DEMs fail to take over Congress in November, Republicans are going to lose seats. Even if they keep their majority, the things will be worse than they are now for the GOP, and the DEM’s bargaining position will be even stronger than today, which means even less support for the wall after the 2018 mid-terms. The omnibus spending bill should’ve been Trump’s line in the sand, his only chance to get the wall done. But he failed to do it and he lost all leverage; now, his base has no reason to rally and vote in droves in November, because after all, the POTUS himself dropped the ball. I hope I’m wrong. What do you think?