President Donald J. Trump correctly opposed the continuing resolution that slithered out of the Senate Thursday night. Instead, he should tell members of the 115th Congress to keep voting until they send him a budget which funds a southern-border wall.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must have fallen into a bourbon barrel.
Only that could explain the Kentucky Republican’s belief that kicking the budget can into next February would simplify matters for President Trump and the GOP.
If things are tough in Washington, D.C. with a unified Republican government, just wait until San Francisco Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi controls the House on Jan. 3.
She will lead a far-left caucus interested in resisting President Trump’s every move, at best, and jailing him, at worst. Such über-liberals as Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. — and such full-on socialists as New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — will salivate over President Trump’s impeachment, not funds for his signature border wall.
"Punting to Feb. 8 on a CR not only gives Democrats a Christmas present, it offers them a Valentine’s Day gift," House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said on Twitter.
President Trump should sign a measure to fund the government through Dec. 31.
He then should keep Congress in town, voting around the clock except Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Postal employees deliver the mail throughout the Yuletide.
Members of Congress should labor at least as hard.
If a solution is not reached by New Year’s Eve, another continuing resolution should fund the government through January 3, giving the Republican Congress three more days to fix this mess, before Pelosi and the Resistance take over. If this seems unfair to Republican lawmakers, remember that Senate Democrats voted for Obamacare on Christmas Eve 2009.
The House should pass an array of spending plans, with wall money, and give the Senate ample options to do concur.
The first vote should be the Freedom Caucus’ amendment for $5 billion in border-wall funds. On Thursday morning, Freedom Caucus members begged House leaders for such a vote. Why on Earth was this vote not held a week ago? A month ago?
If the Senate defeats a House bill with $5 billion in wall money, the House should transmit another with $4.5 billion, and then $4 billion, etc. At some point, public pressure, fatigue, and homesickness should trigger Senate consent.
Bafflingly, President Trump has not used all his tools to promote the border wall. He has yet to address the nation from the Oval Office on this or any other topic. He should tell his fellow Americans the importance of securing this country’s colander-like border. He should restate that limiting immigration to those with passports and visas is fundamental to national sovereignty.
Beyond the 396,579 illegal aliens apprehended at the border in Fiscal Year 2018 — atop those who successfully broke into America — the southern frontier is a hotbed of human smuggling, a conveyor belt for illegal narcotics (including opioids), and a veritable moving sidewalk for members of MS-13 and other vicious, bloodthirsty gangs.
Even more amazingly, Trump rarely discusses the potentially deadly threat of special-interest aliens from such terror states as Iran, Sudan, and Syria. U.S. officials nabbed, respectively, 111, 86, and 44 illegal aliens from those dangerous countries in 2016.
The Center for Immigration Studies’ Todd Bensman last week interviewed four Iranians wandering north through Costa Rica — to America.
A wall would reduce this national-security risk. President Trump should explain this clear and present danger. This unassailable argument for the wall cannot be dismissed as "anti-Hispanic racism."
Inexplicably, the president barely mentions this.
When President Trump last week declared, "I am proud to shut down the government for border security," he drew a line in the sand as red as Obama’s in Syria. The American people, and the president’s Republican/conservative base, expect him to fight like hell for that line, if need be, until at least Jan. 3.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a contributing editor with National Review Online. He has been a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. Read more opinions from Deroy Murdock — Click Here Now.
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