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Trump declares national emergency in goal of getting $8B for wall | Dump Trucks Charlotte NC

Columbus Ohio Dump Truck Company Brief:

    The bill allocates approximately $1.4 billion for 55 miles of new steel barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border — far short of what the president asked for. Trump, however, declared a national emergency to secure a reported $8 billion in border wall funding Friday morning.
  • Some of the money available to the president, according to The New York Times, is up to $2.5 billion of counter-narcotics funds from the Department of Defense. The DOD would give the money to the Army Corps of Engineers, and the White House would transfer property along the border to the DOD. Then the Army Corps could use the money to build a dozens of miles of barriers to protect the DOD's newly acquired property.  
  • Trump’s intentions elicited sharp words from Democratic leaders in Congress, who say they will fight back. "Declaring a national emergency,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (R-NY), "would be a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency, and a desperate attempt to distract from the fact that President Trump broke his core promise to have Mexico pay for his wall."

Dump Trucks Columbus OH Insight:

If the president manages to win the almost-certain legal battles that lie ahead should he declare a national emergency, he would come away with almost $4 billion more for border wall construction than the $5.7 billion he originally requested, which Congress rejected.

According to a January report from Stars and Stripes, Trump could have as much as $37 billion for border wall construction at his disposal under a national emergency declaration. The DOD would be able to hand over $23 billion that has not yet been allocated for its own construction projects — $10 billion from the current fiscal year’s budget and $13 billion that has been amassed during the last five years. Also, the Army Corps has about $14 billion of undedicated disaster funds available. 

The Trump administration has attempted to reframe the border wall discussion by shifting its plans for a solid concrete structure to a steel-slat barrier. However, during 2017 tests of border wall prototypes, personnel from the U.S. military and the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection were able to cut through the steel bollard fence sample using common, readily available tools. President Trump reportedly said that the barrier in the test was an older design and that the new one would be “very, very hard to penetrate."