Trump is spending Hundreds of millions on a deserted US Southern Border

And he wants Billions More in the next spending budget 

Update: The U.S. military’s border-support missions have cost more than $300 million in just the first six weeks since Trump was inaugurated, CNNreported this weekend. Such a pace would eventually cost more than $2.5 billion annually.

Prior recent reporting estimated Trump’s military border support could cost between $1 billion and $2 billion, as CQ Roll Call posted four weeks ago, citing Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed, D-R.I.

 

“They’re drunk on OCO money,” a U.S. official told CNN, referring to Overseas Contingency Operation funding for military operations separate from the Defense Department’s base budget.

 

What are these roughly 9,000-plus active duty troops doing?“Building barricades, putting up concertina wire, and generally ‘just standing around,’” one defense official said.

 

“The total cost of the operation across the federal government remains unclear,”CNN writes. This is because “Those figures do not include money spent by the Department of Homeland Security, the intelligence community and other agencies who have also surged government assets to the border, where President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency.”

 

Why it matters: “Critics argue that the Trump administration is inflating the nature of the threat relative to other priorities—like countering China and Russia or combatting terrorism—and that shifting military assets away from those efforts risks national security.” More, here.