In what can only be described as a political stunt, Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis) introduced a bill on Thursday that would block President Donald Trump from using federal monies to construct a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
“I am not in favor of the wall, but if there is a wall, then I do not want the United States of America to pay for the wall,” Moore said in an interview with CBS News. The congresswoman said that the money for the wall should not come from the taxpayers…which is really something, coming from a Democrat.
Moore calls her doomed bill the No Taxpayer Funding for the Wall Act, and she has apparently lured in more than 30 co-sponsors. Well, of course she has. What Democrat in the House doesn’t want “I fought Trump’s border wall” on their resume?
Moore said she is hoping to bring some Republicans into the fold, especially those who are skeptical of the president’s idea in the first place.
“My bill gives amazing opportunities, I think, to people like Jim Jordan to opt out of building the wall,” she said. “I’m trying to mobilize some interest in my bill from deficit hawks.”
There are plenty of Trump critics in Congress who would rather save the money than shore up our border security, but we can’t imagine that many of them will sign onto Moore’s effort. Meanwhile, Trump is busy hammering out a budget that would make sharp cuts in various areas of domestic spending to build up the Defense budget and start construction on the wall.
When it’s all said and done, there aren’t that many Trump supporters who care one way or the other about the wall as a specific, concrete concept. Well, that’s our perception, anyway. It would be nice. It would certainly send a message. It might actually put a huge dent in the number of illegal immigrants who come across the border. But if those things can be accomplished without the wall, that’s fine too.
What’s not fine is for the wall to go unfunded and for this country to keep on letting just anybody sneak across the border and claim asylum. Or to “disappear into the shadows.” That’s what this administration has vowed to stop, and Democrats ought to be very careful about how vigorously they oppose it. They may find that not as many of their voters are as in love with illegal immigration as they think.
