Trump Diverting $3.6 Billion from Military to Build Border Wall

Trump Diverting $3.6 Billion from Military to Build Border Wall

A worker stands next to a newly built section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence at Sunland Park, U.S. opposite the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez
REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
By Michael Rainey

The Department of Defense has approved a plan to divert $3.6 billion to pay for the construction of parts of President Trump’s border wall, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday. The money will be shifted from more than 100 construction projects focused on upgrading military bases in the U.S. and overseas, which will be suspended until Congress provides additional funds.

In a letter addressed to Senator James Inhofe, chair of the Armed Services Committee, Esper said that in response to the national emergency declared by Trump earlier this year, he was approving work on 11 military construction projects “to support the use of armed forces” on the border with Mexico.

The $3.6 billion will fund about 175 miles of new and refurbished barriers (Esper’s letter does not use the term “wall”).

Esper described the projects, which include new and replacement barriers in San Diego, El Paso and Laredo, Texas, as “force multipliers” that, once completed, will allow the Pentagon to redeploy troops to high-traffic sections of the border that lack barriers. About 5,000 active duty and National Guard troops are currently deployed on the border.

Months in the making: Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the southern border on February 15, 2019, came in the wake of a showdown with Congress over funding for the border wall. The president’s demand for $5.7 billion for the wall sparked a 35-day government shutdown, which ended when Trump reluctantly agreed to a deal that provided $1.375 billion for border security. By declaring a national emergency, Trump gave the Pentagon the legal authority to move billions of dollars around in its budget to address the purported crisis. Legal challenges to the emergency declaration are ongoing.

Conflict with lawmakers: Congress passed a resolution opposing the national emergency declaration in March, prompting Trump to issue the first veto of his presidency. Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee reiterated their opposition to Trump’s move Tuesday, saying in a letter, “As we have previously written, the decision to take funds from critical military construction projects is unjustified and will have lasting impacts on our military.”

Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer was more forceful, saying in a statement, "It is abhorrent that the Trump Administration is choosing to defund 127 critical military construction projects all over the country … and on U.S. bases overseas to pay for an ineffective and expensive wall the Congress has refused to fund. This is a subversion of the will of the American people and their representatives. It is an attack on our military and its effectiveness to keep Americans safe. Moreover, it is a political ploy aimed at satisfying President Trump's base, to whom he falsely promised that Mexico would pay for the construction of an unnecessary wall, which taxpayers and our military are now being forced to fund at a cost of $3.6 billion.”

A group of 10 Democratic Senators said in a letter to Esper that they “are opposed to this decision and the damage it will cause to our military and the relationship between Congress and the Department of Defense.” They said they also “expect a full justification of how the decision to cancel was made for each project selected and why a border wall is more important to our national security and the well-being of our service members and their families than these projects.”

Politico’s John Bresnahan, Connor O'Brien and Marianne LeVine said the diversion will likely be unpopular with Republican lawmakers as well. Republican Senators Mike Lee and Mitt Romney expressed concerns Wednesday about funds being diverted from their home state of Utah. "Funding the border wall is an important priority, and the Executive Branch should use the appropriate channels in Congress, rather than divert already appropriated funding away from military construction projects and therefore undermining military readiness," Romney said

The Pentagon released a list of construction projects that will be affected late on Wednesday (you can review a screenshot tweeted by NBC News’ Alex Moe here).  

An $8 billion effort: In addition to the military construction funds and the money provided by Congress, the Trump administration is using $2.5 billion in drug interdiction money and $600 million in Treasury forfeiture funds to support the construction of barriers on the southern border, for a total of approximately $8 billion. (More on that here.) 

The administration reportedly has characterized the suspended military construction projects as being delayed, but to be revived, those projects would require Congress approving new funding. House Democrats have vowed they won’t “backfill” the money.

The politics of the wall: Trump has reportedly been intensely focused on making progress on the border wall, amid news that virtually no new wall has been built during the first two and a half years of his presidency. Speaking to reporters at the White House Wednesday, Trump said that construction on the wall is moving ahead “rapidly” and that hundreds of miles will be “almost complete if not complete by the end of next year … just after the election.”

Will Parents Finally Get a Break on Back-to-School Spending This Year?

REUTERS/Stephen Lam
By Beth Braverman

The average family with school-age children will spend $630 on clothing and school supplies before their kids return to the classroom.

That’s down slightly from the $669 spent last year, but represents a 42 percent increase over the past decade, according to the National Retail Federation.

Despite the lower per-family spending, fewer consumers say the economy has influenced their spending plans, and a smaller percentage are looking for sales or buying generic products to save.

Among those surveyed, 93 percent said they’d buy clothing for their kids, laying out an average $218 on new threads and $117 on new shoes. Spending on school supplies will average $98.

Families said they planned to spend an average of $197 on electronics, down from $212 spent in that category last year.

Related: 10 Sure Ways to Save on Back-to-School Shopping

A quarter of those surveyed said that they’d start back-to-school shopping just a week or two before school started, while one in five start shopping two months before school begins.

Discount stores represented the most popular destinations for online shopping (62 percent), followed by department stores (56 percent), and clothing stores (54 percent).

Parents are letting their kids take the lead on some purchases, with 86 percent of shoppers saying that their kids will influence at least a quarter of purchases. Teens will spend $33 of their own money an average, and pre-teens will pay $18 out of pocket.

Total spending on back-to-school shopping will amount to $25 billion for K-12, with another $43 billion spent on back-to-college shopping.

They’re Leaving Las Vegas: Fewer I Do’s in Last Decade

Ethan Miller/Getty Images
By Suelain Moy

When it comes to destination weddings, Las Vegas has lost that loving feeling. The Las Vegas Sun reports that the wedding rate in Sin City has plummeted 37 percent in the past decade—nearly 47,000 fewer couples got married in 2014 than in 2004.

By comparison, 2004 was a boom year for weddings in Sin City. There were 128,000 weddings that year—including Britney Spears’ 55-hour marriage to Jason Allen Alexander at A Little White Wedding Chapel.

Marriage Licenses Las VEgas

Related: Marriage?? Young Americans Aren’t Even Shacking Up

Who knows why gambling on love in Sin City has become a losing bet? Perhaps the dip reflects a national trend of millennials waiting to tie the knot or choosing to stay single. The marriage rate in the U.S. neared a record low in 2015 and is expected to drop further in 2016. Then there’s the expense. According to the TheKnot, the average wedding cost (excluding the honeymoon) is $31,213, with many couples looking for more unusual venues.

Clark County Clerk Lynn Goya, who took office in January, wants to change that trend in Vegas. The current fee for a marriage license in Las Vegas is $60, but Goya is asking for a $14 increase in the cost of wedding licenses to support marketing efforts targeting engaged couples. Last year 81,000 weddings happened in Las Vegas—and she’s hoping that wedding vow renewals and gay weddings will help boost those numbers even more. In New York, the legalization of gay marriage in 2011 led to an estimated $259 million in spending and $16 million in revenues for New York City.

Related: The $2.6 Billion Gay Wedding Boom

Then again it may be hard for Las Vegas to shake that quickie, drive-thru wedding image. Sin City has always had an illustrious history of celebrity weddings, with many more misses than hits: Cher’s nine-day union to rocker Gregg Allman in 1975, Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra in 1966, Demi Moore and Bruce Willis in 1987, Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford in 1991, and Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton in 2000. On the bright side, there’s Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s marriage, which endured for 50 years, Jon Bon Jovi and his wife, Dorothea’s 1987 wedding day, and Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelo’s union from 1996, which is still standing.

Expense Account Dining: More McDonald's Than 'Mad Men'

The 15 Most Popular Restaurants for Business Travelers

Flickr/Frank Meier
By Millie Dent

Road warriors know that business travel can be far from glamorous — a seemingly endless series of meetings broken up by long stretches behind the wheel or in cramped airplane seats. And despite the occasional great meal, expense account dining isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, either.

That’s made clear by a new quarterly report from Certify, which provides software for companies and employees to manage their expenses. The company used millions of receipts and vendor ratings from business people to compile rankings of the most commonly expensed restaurants and those with the highest ratings.

Unsurprisingly, Starbucks was the most commonly expensed restaurant, accounting for 4.7 percent of receipts submitted for reimbursement. McDonald’s and Subway were next on the list, with the burger chain the most common choice for dinners and the sandwich chain the top pick for lunches. Fast food chain Chick-fil-A received the top rating among restaurants, with a 4.5 average on a scale from 1 to 5. The days of the three Martini lunch are clearly long gone.

Related: 9 Ways McDonald’s Wants to Get You Excited About Its Food Again​

Certify also reported that business travelers continue to increasingly choose Uber and Airbnb over taxis and hotels. Airbnb grew 143 percent in receipts in the second quarter of the year, though it remains far behind hotels like Marriott and Hampton Inn in popularity. Rental cars still dominated the group transportation receipts (45 percent), but Uber made up 31 percent of receipts, an increase of 8 percentage points from this time last year. For the first time ever, Uber was more popular than taxis, which made up 24 percent of receipts. 

What Your Smartphone Knows That Your Mother Doesn’t

Can Your Smartphone Be Used to Detect Depression?

iStockphoto
By Suelain Moy

It’s always there, in your pocket or purse or on your desk, quietly collecting information. And apparently, when it comes to depression, there’s quite a lot your smartphone knows about you.

According to a small study from Northwestern Medicine, that data from your smartphone can predict with eerie 87 percent accuracy whether you’re suffering from depression or not.

The telling signs: You spend more time on your smartphone and less time leaving the house, and you visit very few places each day.

Related: Smartphone Notifications Are Killing Our Concentration

The researchers used Craigslist to find 40 test subjects between the ages of 19 and 58, and outfitted their smartphones with an app to monitor their location and usage. The individuals took a questionnaire that measured signs of depression; half of the subjects had troubling symptoms and half did not. Using GPS, the phones tracked the subjects’ movements and locations every five minutes. The subjects also were asked questions about their mood at different points during the day.

These factors were then correlated with the test subjects’ original depression test scores. And the results were uncanny. Depressed people used their phones more often and for longer periods of time —an average of 68 minutes a day. By comparison, the individuals who didn’t show signs of depression spent only 17 minutes on theirs. Researchers attributed the increased use of the phone to task avoidance, another symptom of depressed people.

Perhaps more significant than the findings of this small study — only 28 of the 40 subjects had enough data to be studied — is the potential the researchers felt that smartphones could play in future medical diagnosis.

When loaded up with the correct sensors, the smartphone can be used to detect a person’s emotional states, and monitor moods, without the user having to utter a word. It also has the ability to offer suggestions to reinforce positive behaviors when depression is detected. The results of the study were published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research yesterday, but one conclusion was becoming increasingly evident even before the report came out: Smartphones — and the sensors they now contain — just keep getting smarter.

Obamacare Plans Offer 34 Percent Fewer Choices

iStockphoto
By Suelain Moy

As many predicted, Americans insured under the Affordable Care Act may not be able to keep their doctors--and even their hospitals.

A new study reveals that the average plans provided on the Obamacare health insurance exchanges offer 34 percent fewer providers than the average commercial plan offered outside the exchange.

The analysis from Avalere shows the disparity compared with commercial plans:  

  • 42 percent fewer oncology and cardiology specialists
  • 32 percent fewer mental health and primary care providers
  • 24 percent fewer hospitals

Related: Top 10 Questions Consumers Ask About Obamacare

Exchange Plans

“Patients should evaluate a plan’s provider network when picking insurance on the exchange,” said Elizabeth Carpenter, vice president at Avalere. “Out-of-network care does not accrue toward out-of-pocket maximums, leaving consumers vulnerable to high costs if they seek care from a provider not included in their plan’s network.”

Patients need to evaluate a plan’s provider network when selecting insurance on the exchange, especially if they have a history of cancer or heart disease or require mental health services.

Limiting choice is one way for health exchanges to keep costs down, but ultimately patients bear the cost. “Plans continue to test new benefit designs in the exchange market,” said Dan Mendelson, CEO at Avalere. “Given the new requirements put in place by the ACA, network design is one way plans can drive value-based care and keep premiums low.”