Appropriations talk, executive orders walk: The great MAGA budget betrayal
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The bill also provides nearly $7 billion for the Community Development Block Grant Program and the Economic Development Initiatives for housing-related activities and $86 million for fair housing programs. Trump promised for years to eliminate the program altogether.
The only point of contention in the bill is the DHS portion, which Democrats are now threatening to oppose. But let’s be clear: Before the fatal shooting in Minneapolis, they were even willing to pass Trump’s DHS bill and did not perceive it as much of a threat.
At the time the bill was released, Senator Murray boasted that Democrats “defeated Republicans’ hard-fought push to give ICE an even bigger annual budget, successfully cut ICE’s detention budget and capacity, cut CBP’s budget by over $1 billion, and secured important, although still insufficient, new constraints on DHS.” She also lauded the rejection of “all Republican poison pill riders,” such as defunding sanctuary cities.
Democrats are, of course, forced to play to their base. However, on the specifics, this bill contains some horrendous provisions.
- Cheap foreign labor: It allows the secretary to double H-2B visas, going from 66,000 to 130,000 H-2B visas.
- Prohibits ICE from deporting illegal aliens who sponsor unaccompanied minors based on any information provided by HHS. So HHS is supposed to vet the sponsors, but if it determines they are here illegally and tells ICE that, ICE is prohibited from deporting them.
Why would we double foreign worker visas and make it harder to remove those literally engaged in trafficking children over the border by hiring cartel smugglers?
Well, despite all the rhetoric, press releases, tweets, and executive orders, good ol’ Joe Biden had it right when he proclaimed, “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” Evidently, we are now valuing almost everything all that he funded in his budget when he made that comment.
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