BORDER/BUDGET/MILITARY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WALL: “The Pentagon is staring down weeks and possibly months of budget uncertainty that’s shaping up to be the most turbulent budget drama for the military in years.
Once again, the US Armed Forces are caught in the middle of a bigger political fight — this time over President Donald Trump’s border wall — where the defense budget could become little more than a pawn in spending negotiations, defense analysts and congressional aides say.
At a rally in Phoenix on Tuesday [8-22-17], Trump threatened to shut down the government if Democrats would not fund his proposed wall on the US-Mexico border, a move that Republican leaders said they disagreed with.
The wall presents yet another potential stumbling block for Congress to pass spending bills for the military and the rest of the federal government this fall, in addition to the challenge of raising the debt ceiling.
But even without a protracted fight over the wall or debt limit, military funding could swing by a whopping $70 billion depending on whether congressional Republicans get their way on the defense budget.”
-Jeremy Herb, “Military budget stuck between a wall and a hard place,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Aug. 25, 2017 06:06am