Pentagon Reroutes Resources to Pay for Border Wall
Lucy Nicholson / Reuters file
We ran the numbers: There are 571 news articles covering this topic. 64% (365) are left leaning, 35% (197) center, 2% (9) right leaning.
On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced a list of military building projects that will lose $3.6 billion in funding, which will be used to help build a wall on the US-Mexico border. On Tuesday, the Pentagon began calling congressional leaders to inform them that they would be cancelling the construction projects in order to fund the border wall. About half of the cancelled construction projects are located overseas, while the domestic ones are located in both Democratic and Republican districts. There has been a defense bill proposed in the Senate that would backfill the $3.6 billion through the fiscal year 2020 budget.
A right-leaning Fox News article on the funding shifts focuses on President Trump’s touting of the progress on the border wall. The article reports that Trump expects the wall to be completed in “key areas” by the end of next year. The article also notes that “Trump had directed $155 million to be diverted to border facilities from FEMA disaster relief.” When asked if he feels comfortable with that decision considering the damage caused by Hurricane Dorian, Trump responded that FEMA is using less funding in responding to the storm than originally anticipated.
A left-leaning article from the New York Times begins by clarifying some of the projects that will lose funding as a result of the diverted money. The projects include schools and daycare centers for military families. The article also explains that Trump was able to diver this funding by declaring a national emergency earlier this year in order to access the military construction budget. Left-leaning articles tend to emphasize the projects that have been defunded as well as reactions from Democrats decrying the move.
A centrist article from NPR includes an embedded list of every project that will be defunded by the reallocation of funds to the border wall. The article also examines congresspeople’s responses to the funding shift, saying “Virginia Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner slammed the move, saying their state alone will lose more than $77 million in planned construction projects.”
From the left
Pentagon Pulls Funds for Military Schools, Daycare to Pay for Trump's Border Wall
New York Times, Reuters