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Food for Thought: Donald Trump can fund the border wall without congressional approval

Grokmaster

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As money already disbursed to the Executive Branch, including loans, are under the management of the Executive Branch...the article is correct.







Donald Trump can fund the border wall without congressional approval

The border wall will be built only if Donald Trump uses executive power to do it. He has the funds available and the authority to build the wall



A week ago, the White House put out a call to federal agencies to look for “pots of money” in their existing budgets that could be cobbled together to pay for border wall construction. Immediately, Sen. John Thune, the Republican whip in the upper chamber, shot down the idea of shifting funds from executive departments to the border, saying, “I’m not a big fan of moving money.” Like it or not, there are sources of revenue in the executive branch that the president has authority to use without congressional approval.

The federal government has shut down because Republicans can’t agree on funding for President Donald Trump’s main campaign promise to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico, and Democrats are insisting they will not vote for wall funding. This typical Washington gridlock is surmountable because Trump can build the wall on his own.

For example, Trump could authorize the sale of $10 billion of USDA rural water loans on the secondary market, which could bring in a lump sum payment of $12 billion or more. Revenue from these proceeds could be directed to build the border wall.

Another option would be to utilize funds in the same way USDA undertakes in-kind swaps with private parties to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of commodities and services. This would entail swapping the proceeds of the commercial paper sales for the wall, with construction companies being the counterparties.These are only a few creative funding avenues that could be explored, some less complicated than others. Such an aggressive approach is a sure way for Trump to regain the initiative and get the attention of lawmakers who have an interest in killing any threat to their control over spending, thus giving the president leverage in negotiations as pressure mounts to end the shutdown.


Voters want a wall and Trump should deliver it


https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...build-border-wall-spending-column/2402442002/
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Why doesn't he just get Mexico to pay for it like he said he would?
 
The problem with a wall is that future leaders could and likely will open some doors making the wall useless.
 
He better be careful. The reason he can move that money without congressional consent is because congress delegates that authority in those specific funding bills. If he abuses that discretion Congress need only stop delegating that authority, and then Trump will find himself being micromanaged. I’m thinking he wouldn’t like that.
 
He better be careful. The reason he can move that money without congressional consent is because congress delegates that authority in those specific funding bills. If he abuses that discretion Congress need only stop delegating that authority, and then Trump will find himself being micromanaged. I’m thinking he wouldn’t like that.

Not exactly true. Congress cannot retroactively change the spending stipulations of any prior allotted funds. They can make rules about future appropriations, but they can't do a "redo" on existing funds.
 
The problem with a wall is that future leaders could and likely will open some doors making the wall useless.

Then let future leaders deal with the backlash for it.
 
Why doesn't he just get Mexico to pay for it like he said he would?

I would love to see him go to a rally in the near future and say what the reality is.

"We're going to build a great, beautiful wall all along our southern border... And all of you are going to pay for it!

Believe me!".


180821195500-02-trump-wv-rally-0821-super-tease.jpg


giphy.gif
 
As money already disbursed to the Executive Branch, including loans, are under the management of the Executive Branch...the article is correct.







Donald Trump can fund the border wall without congressional approval

The border wall will be built only if Donald Trump uses executive power to do it. He has the funds available and the authority to build the wall



A week ago, the White House put out a call to federal agencies to look for “pots of money” in their existing budgets that could be cobbled together to pay for border wall construction. Immediately, Sen. John Thune, the Republican whip in the upper chamber, shot down the idea of shifting funds from executive departments to the border, saying, “I’m not a big fan of moving money.” Like it or not, there are sources of revenue in the executive branch that the president has authority to use without congressional approval.

The federal government has shut down because Republicans can’t agree on funding for President Donald Trump’s main campaign promise to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico, and Democrats are insisting they will not vote for wall funding. This typical Washington gridlock is surmountable because Trump can build the wall on his own.

For example, Trump could authorize the sale of $10 billion of USDA rural water loans on the secondary market, which could bring in a lump sum payment of $12 billion or more. Revenue from these proceeds could be directed to build the border wall.

Another option would be to utilize funds in the same way USDA undertakes in-kind swaps with private parties to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of commodities and services. This would entail swapping the proceeds of the commercial paper sales for the wall, with construction companies being the counterparties.These are only a few creative funding avenues that could be explored, some less complicated than others. Such an aggressive approach is a sure way for Trump to regain the initiative and get the attention of lawmakers who have an interest in killing any threat to their control over spending, thus giving the president leverage in negotiations as pressure mounts to end the shutdown.


Voters want a wall and Trump should deliver it


https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...build-border-wall-spending-column/2402442002/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The voters that do want it can contribute to the GoFundMe campaign. If there are that many of them and they're that eager to pay for the wall, then problem solved.
 
Why doesn't he just get Mexico to pay for it like he said he would?

Because that would disabuse Trump and the GOP of a political "talking point" and "red meat." Trump and other GOP "muckety mucks" know as well as does everyone else that when the GOP must move from merely pointing fingers at mistakes Dems have made to having to implement major legislative policy of their own, the GOP just isn't up to the task. To wit:
  • Congressional GOP-ers spent, what, six years bitching about O-care and passing O-care repeal bills, only to have Obama veto them. Trump ran on "repeal and replace" O-care, promising that the replacement would be better in every way for everybody. "Believe me," he said. Then, when the GOP obtained control of both chambers of Congress, and enabled 50-vote Senate passage by invoking "reconciliation," they couldn't get passed any one of the 80-some-odd O-care repeal bills they'd with religious consistency passed during the prior six years, nor could they pass their own newly drafted O-care repeal bill....nevermind that they also couldn't pass a replacement for O-care.
  • Again aided in the Senate by "reconciliation," the GOP attempted to pass a tax bill that, rhetorically alleging to align with Trump's campaign promises to favor the middle class re: federal income tax policy, was touted as "tax reform" but that (1) wasn't anything of the sort, (2) unequivocally accomplished only one of his campaign promises re: tax policy, and (3) in direct contravention of the middle-class-preferring tax policy theme he articulated, overwhelmingly benefitted high income earners -- both individuals and corporations -- more so than middle income earners.

    And if anyone wondered why Trump was touting the rise in the Dow and S&P index values, s/he need only look at the TCJA and firm behavior in response to it. Firms underwent massive stock buybacks, thus driving up their market prices, but without a corresponding/underlying increase in output, productivity, product quality, firm operational efficiency, or innovation. No surprise that the Dow closed most recently at a value well below the monthly average some six months before the TCJA passed, to say nothing of after its passage.
From comparing the rhetoric and the behavioral outcomes resulting when Republicans have complete control of the Executive and Legislative branches of government, it's clear their "talking points" are useful to them for politicking, for winning elections, but bare tits on a bull as frameworks for the provisions of major actual legislation that can pass, even when by them is "wholly owned" control of the policy-making process.
 
I don’t think the USDA has authorization to use funds for a border wall
 
The voters that do want it can contribute to the GoFundMe campaign. If there are that many of them and they're that eager to pay for the wall, then problem solved.

If only things worked that way. People who want to fund things like the arts or PP could do so and those who dont, dont.
 
The problem with a wall is that future leaders could and likely will open some doors making the wall useless.

LOL, that's not what would make the wall useless. Check this out:



Let me know if you still don't understand, and I'll find something to make it clearer.
 
I don’t think the USDA has authorization to use funds for a border wall
You are correct about that. Several laws and processes interact to control how the Executive branch (EB) can spend money. Those things, at a high level, are:
  • Congress' Constitutionally established "power of the purse"
  • The provisions of an appropriation
  • The statutory raison d'etre for a given department, agency, bureau, etc. that receives an appropriation
Of those three main factors, the second is the one most germane to the question of from where Trump may find money for building his wall.

When Congress provides an appropriation, its substance is "X dollars are appropriated for Program A that Department/Bureau/Agency Y administers." Congress stipulates funding that way so that it can retain its purview over how tax dollars are spent. Accordingly, Program A's administrator/manager has discretion for specific expenditures the program makes; however, s/he and the organization for which s/he works must nonetheless use the appropriated sum only to accomplish Program A's ends. The organization that administers Program A can request that Congress authorize a transfer (or proactively authorize the transfer) of Program A funding to some other program, or even to another department/bureau/agency, etc.; however, until that authorization is granted (by a Congressional vote to do so), the money can't go anywhere.

An appropriation becomes the budget, the maximum sum of money, that a given EB unit (whatever the level) can spend to do the things it exists to do. Since nothing about what, say, the USDA is tasked with doing pertains to establishing and maintaining border security, the USDA has no program that has been appropriated to build a border wall (or undertake any other border security function). The same is so for most other units of the EB.

Most budget appropriations allocate what's called "general fund" money.

Sample/Generic Governmental Funds Balance Sheet

yd4zkvlm



General fund money is money collected from anywhere (income tax revenue, certain borrowings, and certain duty/fee revenue are some examples) other than from "restricted" sources, FICA and FUTA payroll tax collections being two of the various restricted sources. (Referring to the image above, FICA/FUTA money is included in the "Other" column.) Among the general fund sources of revenue is tariff duty. Tariff duty is the one source of funds that may offer Trump unrestrained use of them.

I wrote "may" because, despite having made several inquiries, I haven't been able to get the answer to the questions I asked.

  • Tariff duty collections are deposited into the general fund, but the nature of tariff revenue is such that it isn't handly estimable such that it can be reliably allocated in the appropriations process. This much I and everyone I've talked to (a few leg. aides, an import/export lawyer-lobbyist, a gov't economist, a Commerce Dept. SES employee, and two members of Congress -- obviously they're the wrong folks to ask, but finding the right folks will take some time, I suppose) and understands quite well. Given that is the nature of tariff duty revenue:
    • Is allowed to be spent in the fiscal (accounting) year (FY) of its receipt?
    • Or is it held and allocated in the following FY's appropriations process, thus making tariff duty monies subject to Congressional authorization?
Aside from tariff duty, I'm not aware of any routinely obtained monies the EB might receive and that it can, with unilateral discretion, opt to spend to build a wall on the US-Mexico border because there is currently no appropriation line item that authorizes spending (or borrowing, for that matter) for that purpose.
 
Indirectly? What does that mean?

It's a clever cop out. Claim some nebulous amount of dollars "saved" through unidentified provisions of the new trade deal. Declare that to be the wall funding, as if that somehow magically makes the deficit not rise.
 
Why doesn't he just get Mexico to pay for it like he said he would?

You are dealing with a constituency that writes: For example, Trump could authorize the sale of $10 billion of USDA rural water loans on the secondary market, which could bring in a lump sum payment of $12 billion or more. Revenue from these proceeds could be directed to build the border wall.

So you see, there is little hope for reason here. A $10 billion note sells for $9 to $9.5 billion.

The seller of any loan must discount it to any buyer.

Nice try though. Maybe this is possible and just more debt but I am not sure govt. has the legal power.

Where is the capitalist here ? Charge a toll, make it a 'toll wall.'
 
As money already disbursed to the Executive Branch, including loans, are under the management of the Executive Branch...the article is correct.







Donald Trump can fund the border wall without congressional approval

The border wall will be built only if Donald Trump uses executive power to do it. He has the funds available and the authority to build the wall



A week ago, the White House put out a call to federal agencies to look for “pots of money” in their existing budgets that could be cobbled together to pay for border wall construction. Immediately, Sen. John Thune, the Republican whip in the upper chamber, shot down the idea of shifting funds from executive departments to the border, saying, “I’m not a big fan of moving money.” Like it or not, there are sources of revenue in the executive branch that the president has authority to use without congressional approval.

The federal government has shut down because Republicans can’t agree on funding for President Donald Trump’s main campaign promise to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico, and Democrats are insisting they will not vote for wall funding. This typical Washington gridlock is surmountable because Trump can build the wall on his own.

For example, Trump could authorize the sale of $10 billion of USDA rural water loans on the secondary market, which could bring in a lump sum payment of $12 billion or more. Revenue from these proceeds could be directed to build the border wall.

Another option would be to utilize funds in the same way USDA undertakes in-kind swaps with private parties to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of commodities and services. This would entail swapping the proceeds of the commercial paper sales for the wall, with construction companies being the counterparties.These are only a few creative funding avenues that could be explored, some less complicated than others. Such an aggressive approach is a sure way for Trump to regain the initiative and get the attention of lawmakers who have an interest in killing any threat to their control over spending, thus giving the president leverage in negotiations as pressure mounts to end the shutdown.


Voters want a wall and Trump should deliver it


https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...build-border-wall-spending-column/2402442002/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



The truth is that there isn't a strong will on on the part of Americans to build and fund this wall. A recent poll revealed only 28% thought it was a high priority issue.
 
The truth is that there isn't a strong will on on the part of Americans to build and fund this wall. A recent poll revealed only 28% thought it was a high priority issue.

And another recent poll found your poll to be fullacrap.
 
And another recent poll found your poll to be fullacrap.


Given that you are full of crap just about all of the time, I'll take that with a grain of salt.
 
Given that you are full of crap just about all of the time, I'll take that with a grain of salt.

Reduced to ad homs as usual.

Sure I am. Care to address the topic of the thread, or keep pretending Fake News polls mean something.
 
If they did we would be on the road to not being a country anymore.


Why do you say that? A small federal government supplemented by communities funding special interest projects is in line with the original concept of our country.
 
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