OPINION:
Not that anyone needs further evidence that Congress is hopelessly broken these days, but we are once again reminded in spectacular fashion just how bad things are watching Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill play dangerous political games in recent weeks while there is a full-blown invasion at the southern border.
And while powerful factions in both parties actively despise former President Donald Trump, their relentless failures to address conditions at the border pave the way for his return to the White House.
Their latest display of contempt for voters came with a Senate proposal to continue allowing 5,000 people from all over the world to breach the border illegally every day and further scrap halfhearted efforts to build Mr. Trump’s border wall.
As if those details were not insulting enough, members of the Democratic-controlled Senate flashed their full contempt for voters by including nearly $100 billion more in funding for the wars in Ukraine and Israel in a bill that was supposed to be about securing our borders. Less than $20 billion was set aside in the legislation for the U.S. border, though money is not the primary problem in sealing the border.
The primary problem — as it has been for all but four of the past 38 years — is the political will in Washington to secure the border once and for all.
Still, the funding numbers included in the Senate bill were as stark as they were insulting. In the bill, lawmakers insisted on giving Ukraine and Israel five times as much money from broke American taxpayers to fix those foreign borders as Washington lawmakers were willing to spend on our border.
It was a remarkable snapshot in time. The only way Senate leaders — both Republicans and Democrats — could justify closing the U.S. border was to spend tens of billions on two wars overseas launched on President Biden’s watch.
War funding in Ukraine and Israel was the only sweetener that would bring lawmakers to the table to address our own border, which polls show tops the lists of voter concerns this year.
It is not hyperbole to say that these people in Congress hate you.
After some smart Republicans in the Senate refused to go along, the bill failed. Republican traitors like Sen. Mitt Romney immediately blamed Mr. Trump because, you know, Orange Man Bad.
Needless to say, the media pounced and accused Republicans in both chambers of refusing to secure the border, inexplicably absolving Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party of their long embrace of open borders. Remember, it was just four years ago that every single person running for the Democratic nomination for president vowed to give foreigners who sneak into the country illegally free health care.
Every single one of them. Including, of course, Mr. Biden.
Smearing Mr. Trump for the failure of Washington to close the border is yet another wild lie from the political media.
One of the very first bills passed by the House after Republicans took control — the Secure the Border Act — would have simply restored Mr. Trump’s policies that proved so successful at stemming the tide of illegals crossing the border. Those were precisely the policies that Mr. Biden nixed on his first day in office. In response, Democrats in Congress applauded, and then the current tsunami of illegals crossing the border began.
If President Biden and Democrats in Congress are so determined to pay for all their wars overseas, they should start by finishing the war here at home.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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