Trump planning to divert additional $7.2 billion in Pentagon funds for border wall

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/trump-planning-to-divert-additional-72-billion-in-pentagon-funds-for-border-wall/2020/01/13/59080a3a-363d-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html?fbclid=IwAR3KQcLSIzvb4n7mIXlGn_A7JdZv7UknJhDUJ9DvbHoQYXC45lCj64RIC00&utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

By Nick Miroff
Jan. 13, 2020 at 7:35 p.m. EST

President Trump is preparing to divert an additional $7.2 billion in Pentagon funding for border wall construction this year, five times what Congress authorized him to spend on the project in the 2020 budget, according to internal planning figures obtained by The Washington Post.

The Pentagon funds would be extracted, for the second year in a row, from military construction projects and counternarcotics funding. According to the plans, the funding would give the government enough money to complete about 885 miles of new fencing by spring 2022, far more than the 509 miles the administration has slated for the U.S. border with Mexico.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/pentagon-has-warned-of-dire-outcomes-if-military-projects-canceled-for-wall-dont-happen/2019/09/18/03e99ac6-d988-11e9-ac63-3016711543fe_story.html

Pentagon has warned of dire outcomes if military projects canceled for wall don’t happen

By Aaron Gregg and Erica Werner
September 18, 2019 at 11:10 a.m. EDT

The Pentagon warned of dire outcomes unless Congress paid for urgently needed military construction projects nationwide — the same projects that have now been canceled to fund President Trump’s border wall.

The warnings are contained in Defense Department budget requests sent to lawmakers in recent years. They include potentially hazardous living conditions for troops and their families, as well as unsafe schools that would impede learning. In numerous cases, the Defense Department warned that lives would be put at risk if buildings don’t meet the military’s standards for fire safety or management of explosives.

Even before $3.6 billion in construction funding was pulled to support a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, military buildings across the country often had been neglected in favor of other priorities. The defense spending limits that took effect after a 2013 budget deal designed to end a government shutdown starved the military’s construction budget for years, officials and analysts say, meaning many construction projects are long overdue.

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In requests to Congress over the past three years, military officials describe dilapidated World War II-era warehouses with “leaking asbestos panel roof systems,” a drone pilot training facility with sinkholes and a bat infestation, explosives being stored in buildings that didn’t meet safety standards and a mold-infested middle school. In numerous instances, Defense Department officials wrote that the infrastructure problems were hurting the military’s readiness and impeding the department’s national security mission.

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See the full article for more troubling specifics.

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