Appropriations and the Wall

The Democratic leadership just released the details of their continuing resolution (CR) which is a "stopgap" measure meant to keep the government and discretionary programs funded by the Appropriations Bill running until March 6th.

For the most part, a CR just keeps programs running at their current levels. But the leadership decided to make a couple of exceptions:

Another $1.053 BILLION (yes that is $1,053,000,000) to border fencing, i.e. the wall--both physical and virtual.

Another $516 million to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE as they are commonly known)

And another $60 million to Immigration and Citizenship Services

Total: $1,629,000,000 spent on immigration enforcement.

That's a lot of money. Imagine if that went into education. You could give full tuition scholarships to 38,000 students for a four year degree program. You could fund all of the public schools, including supporting charter schools, in the state of New York for a year providing for a 5% increase in teacher pay and still have $100 million left in discretionary funds.

But instead we want a wall?