Trump’s ballroom is getting a huge chunk of money in Senate Republicans’ new reconciliation bill, released late last night. That’s the headline today on many pieces about the legislation.
And it is important: the White House insisted that private donors, not taxpayers, would foot the bill for the ballroom. Now, through a vote where — due to Senate rules — Republicans do not need Democratic support, senators will in fact direct $1 billion of taxpayer funding to security features for the project, which, at times, seems to be all Trump truly cares about.
We, however, have been emphasizing another point about this legislation: it lasts for three years. That means if Democrats retake the House or Senate or both later this year, they’ll be deprived, via this reconciliation bill, of a key mechanism for reining in ICE and CBP: funding. The Constitution equipped Congress to check the executive branch via its power of the purse. This reconciliation bill is just the latest example of Republicans doing all they can to shrug off that responsibility.
