House panel unveils $1.6B plan for building U.S.-Mexico wall

WASHINGTON — A House panel Tuesday unveiled legislation to begin building President Donald Trump’s long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Mexico, however, will not be footing the bill.

The move by the House Appropriations Committee again puts the Trump administration and its allies on Capitol Hill on a collision course with Democrats who oppose the wall and who succeeded in blocking a request by Trump to deliver the money when passing an omnibus spending measure in the spring.

Democrats objected to the funding while significant opposition to the wall itself surfaced among Republicans as well. The administration and congressional Republicans took a pass on forcing the issue in May but vowed to fight for the wall this summer and fall.

During the campaign, Trump bragged that Mexico would pay for the wall but he’s never come up with a plan to deliver on his boast. Instead, the $1.6 billion down payment for the wall will be added to the government’s almost $20 trillion debt.

The fight over funding the wall is a major obstacle to funding government operations for the budget year beginning Oct. 1 and some conservatives are threatening to shut the government down if the wall is not included. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., has raised the threat as part of his GOP primary campaign against appointed Sen. Luther Strange, threatening to filibuster any funding bill that fails to include money for the wall project. And Trump himself reacted to news reports suggesting Democrats had bested him on the earlier catchall spending bill by tweeting about Senate filibuster rules and declaring that: “Our country needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September to fix mess!”