The excitement here is palpable! There are stories that the Administration may change their candidate as soon as May. That is unverified, of course, since that is the way journalism seems to work these days. There is some controversy about who might replace the incumbents.
May is still at least three months away in this endless campaign, so that topic will continue to percolate as each day goes by. What is closer, of course, is the situation at the Border. You probably have heard some of the publicity surrounding the Big Omnibus Bill in Congress. It is currently knocking about in the Senate of the United States. It is billed as “bipartisan” in formulation as part of the sales campaign to “Fix the Border!”
We have been talking about that for years now, and there is some discussion that an assortment of people in line to scoop up some of the vast amount of money we are poised to vote on tomorrow. The actual text of the bill has only been available for about 48 hours, and is over 300 pages in length. The only people who have actually read the whole thing are some of the Senators and the platoons of lobbyists for most of the issues contained in it.
The matter became controversial when the numbers started to leak out. Contained in the $118 Billion dollar legislation are things that meet the new requirement of our national lawmaking, which is that the effects of the omnibus bills have little to do with their actual contents.
The Senate Majority Leader wants to vote tomorrow, but despite the “bipartisan” description, there is word this morning that the Senate Minority leader is also voicing opposition to the Bill he helped to craft. That is the initial blow-back, and here are some of the reasons why.
US Senate releases draft bill to toughen border measures while securing aid to Ukraine and Israel
The $118bn bill includes $60bn in military assistance for Ukraine. As a point of magnitude, that is most of what is in the Bill. There is $14 Billion for Israel and $10 Billion in humanitarian assistance for civilians affected by war in Ukraine, Gaza and the West Bank.
So, that is most of the proposal, at $84 Billion. By comparison, we spend $53 Billion to have a Marine Corps. We have not arrived at anything directly related to the US-Mexico border. There is another $4.83 Billion to be used in support of US allies in the Indo-Pacific and to “deter China.” Since we also appear to be in some sort of proxy war in the Red Sea, another couple Billion goes to assisting US military operations against Houthi rockets in the Bab al Mendeb Strait.
That means over three quarters of the Border Bill has provisions for every other Border except ours. The lead drafter of the Senate minority side is a GOP member from Oklahoma, Sen. James Lankford. He seems close to giving up on the bill.
The word this morning is that the remaining- and stark minority- portion of the funds to be appropriated will have something to do with the line in the sand between us and the Mexicans. So at least we are continuing to name things as the inverse of their stated function.
So, that development will either be kicked down the road- like the 2024 Budget that was supposed to fund things starting last October- or kicked to the curb. Meanwhille, reports from the Border Control folks is that they have seen a dramatic increase in the number of young Chinese men passing north from….Mexico.
There has also been speculation on what they might be doing, or where they got the money to fly to Mexico from China in order to enter the US illegally. What border policy changes are included in the bill?
The legislation has been described as the “most severe set of changes to border policy in decades.” If passed, the bill would provide $20bn in funding to bolster and expand border security operations at a time when arrests for illegal crossings at the US-Mexican border have hit record highs.
Anyway, we will probably know about the Bill by close of business tomorrow. We won’t know what the Chinese fellows are up to for a while. Their presence may have something to do with influencing the election. We are considering writing our three members on the Hill- Virginia’s two Senators and the House member from our 8th District here in Arlington.
There are a lot of things that need to be addressed, and the Border Bill makes some provisions about all sorts of things. We tried to find the official name for the Bipartisan Border Bill, but we will have to leave it at that. They will have to find something else to call it, since we have run out of money to support Ukraine and the other global troubles.
Something will have to be done. Maybe we will hear about that tomorrow!
Copyright. 2024 Vic Socotra
Vic Socotra | Purveyor of glib words to the world