So Congress finally passed a budget. It’s a blockbuster—$1.3 trillion, or around four thousand dollars for every man, woman, and child in the U.S.A. Basically it is a compound made up of (a) anything Leftist Democrats could wish for, and (b) anything that the Jeb Bush wing of the Republican Party, and that wing’s Big Business donors (but I repeat myself), could wish for. But how about the things that sixty-three million of us voted for in 2016, awarding the Presidency to Donald Trump?
Border control? Enforcement of immigration law? An end to missionary wars and the World Policeman role? Economic and population policies that favor Americans rather than foreigners?
There has to be some of that in such a colossal budget, doesn’t there?
After all, Donald Trump is President, isn’t he? He signed off on this thing, doesn’t he?
Well, to be perfectly fair, if you apply a microscope to the budget bill’s two thousand-odd pages, you can find a teeny-tiny sort-of concession to Trumpism hidden in there among the gov-speranto.
There is, for example, $1.6 billion—one-eighth of one percent of the total budget—for border security, probably the single issue more than any other that brought voters out for Trump in 2016.
How will that $1.6 billion be spent? Congressional Republicans have told us it will be spent on, “replacement (of existing barriers), bollards, and levee improvements.” Congressional Democrats have told us that the money will not be used for any new concrete wall.[U.S. Congress unveils $1.3 trillion spending bill as shutdown looms, Reuters, March 21, 2018]
So—no wall, then. Those “prototypes” our President was inspecting in the southwestern desert the other day were merely what the late Senator Pat Moynihan called “boob bait for the bubbas.”
Got it. Probably those prototypes will still be standing out there in the desert a thousand years from now, testifying to the suicide of our nation, while round about them, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.
Twiddling the knobs on my microscope a little more, I see that there’s funding for DHS to hire 351 new Customs and Border Protection agents.
Not 350, please note, nor 352: just precisely 351. Let no-one accuse the Congressional drafting committees of imprecision.
Customs and Border Protection are the guys at our airports, seaports, and border posts. CBP has 60,000 employees, according to their website, so that 351 additional is better than a half of one percent.
Don’t you feel safer already?
And what about ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the guys who do the intelligence and muscle work—interior enforcement, workplace compliance, and deportation of illegals? Do they get 351 more agents? Or perhaps 263, or 155?
“Barely 100” is the best number I can find in the news reports. [Why Trump is threatening to veto the omnibus bill over immigration, By Dara Lind, Vox.com, March 23, 2018]
It is now in fact fashionable on the political Left to call for the outright abolition of ICE. [ICE deserves to be abolished, by Molly Roberts, Washington Post, March 13, 2018]
This is quite a recent development, which bears watching. The old commies at The Nation magazine got the ball rolling earlier this month with an article calling ICE “incompatible with democracy and human rights.”[It’s Time to Abolish ICE | A mass-deportation strike force is incompatible with democracy and human rights, By Sean McElwee, March 9, 2018] Now the cry is being raised all over the CultMarx-o-sphere: “Abolish ICE!”
If the Democrats pull off a congressional sweep in November, abolition of ICE will likely be high on their agenda. And that will be the end for interior enforcement of our immigration laws.
In fact, the budget that Congress just passed is a big negative for patriotic reform. It includes an expansion of the H-2B guest-worker program, undoubtedly with the approval of Republican congressvermin cucking to their donors. (H-2B is the low-skill equivalent of the H-1B). That’s more cheap labor for the business donors—fewer jobs for low-skill Americans.
The budget also further extends the EB-5 investor-visa program, which lets wealthy foreigners buy themselves green cards, and which we at VDARE.com have been railing against for years.
It’s not just us Dissident Right crazies, either: Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa recently opined that the EB-5 has been “hijacked by big moneyed New York City real estate interests.”[Sen. Grassley Opposes Short-Term Extension of EB-5, but Big Money Prevails, By David North, CIS.org, March 21, 2018]
So much for the immigration components of the budget bill—which, once again, let me repeat, was not thrown out with howls of outrage from the Republican-majority House and Senate: they passed the filthy thing.
But does the bill go any way towards winding down our World Policeman role, with our troops stationed in, or covertly active in, 177 countries?
Remember candidate Trump telling the South Koreans to nuke up and take care of their own defenses? Any help for that in the budget bill?
Not at all. The bill in fact includes a $61 billion increase in “defense” spending over last year, a bigger than eight percent increase.
So I guess we shall keep those 39,000 troops in Japan, those 35,000 troops in Germany, and those 12,000 in Italy, just in case WW2 flares up again.
You remember WW2. That was the one your grandfather fought in, the one that ended 73 years ago.
I guess we’ll keep our 23,000 troops in South Korea, too, since that country is obviously incapable of defending itself against North Korea, in spite of having twice the North’s population and fifty times its GDP.
I wonder: Do our troops in, say, Djibouti, or Thailand, or Jordan ever wonder what the heck they’re doing there to the advantage of the U.S.A.? Or do they get together and sing the song the war-weary Tommies sang in WW1:
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