U.S. Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, on Thursday in Congress denounced President Trump’s decision to divert $3.6 billion for critical military construction projects in Washington state and across the country to instead fund construction of what she said is his wasteful wall on the southern U.S. border.
As a result of this callous and alarming move, Murray said, military construction priorities that Congress had already funded—including $88.9 million for a vital pier and maintenance facility at Naval Base Kitsap—have been deferred indefinitely, making Washington state one of the areas most impacted by this executive overreach, according to a Murray news release. Additionally, federal investments in other priorities for our military, including investments to fund schools and child care facilities for military families, were also ransacked to pay for Trump’s border wall.
“The Pentagon’s announcement this week that it plans to move billions—billions—of dollars away from critical military construction projects across our country is more than a broken promise to our troops, it is an egregious abuse of power that undercuts Congress’ constitutional obligation to set our nation’s budget, and it compromises critical national security priorities,” Murray said in remarks on the Senate floor.
Murray said the deeply disturbing move by the Trump Administration directly undercuts Congress’ authority to appropriate and allocate federal funds, spurred by President Trump’s absurd and manufactured national emergency declaration, and comes despite the President’s promise on the campaign trail that Mexico would pay for a border wall.
In addition to flouting the Congressional budget process, Trump’s decision undermines military readiness and compromises national security, Murray said. In Washington state specifically, the pier and maintenance facility project at Naval Base Kitsap would provide vital protection for the Navy’s Trident ballistic missile submarines. In other states, the lost funding will affect the construction of military schools and child care facilities as well as critical defense infrastructure, negatively impacting military families and their communities.
A vocal opponent of she calls Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, Murray has been a staunch opponent of Trump’s border wall and his accompanying national emergency declaration, introducing a bill in February to prevent the president from taking future action to raid federal coffers to fund his border wall.
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