With
the Trump administration resisting all of this oversight, GAO is more
important today than it ever has been. While I would support the Legislative Branch bill if it came to the
floor on its own, unfortunately, we are not considering it on its own. I oppose tying $1.6 billion of wasted taxpayer money for President
Trump's border wall to the Legislative Branch bill. We need bipartisan,
comprehensive immigration reform, which would include smarter, more
effective enforcement of our laws. A few years ago, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said
immigration reform would reduce our deficit by $900 billion and
increase real GDP growth by over 3 percent. But simply building a
ridiculous wall that faces opposition from both Democrats and
Republicans won't do anything for our economy, and it isn't even a
cost-effective way to strengthen enforcement. Besides, we were told repeatedly over the course of the last 18
months that Mexico would pay for the wall. They would ask the
President: Who is going to pay for the wall? Mexico is going to pay for
the wall. Why is there a single dime of American taxpayer money for a border
wall that President Trump promised Mexico would finance? I oppose the Republicans' partisan budget strategy. By refusing to
work with Democrats on a bipartisan budget deal that raises the Budget
Control Act caps, Republicans are seriously risking some combination of
sequestration, stopgap funding bills, government shutdown, and a
catastrophic default on our national debt.
Keywords matched
immigration border wall border
wall