House Speaker Mike Johnson deftly averted a federal shutdown last week by ensuring the government would remain funded through January — but the urgent need remains for a supplemental spending bill to bolster Ukraine and Israel and beef up US defense production.
And on that front, President Biden needs to heed the warning of Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and quit trying to sneak in yet more Democratic domestic-spending priorities, and instead get real about border security.
The border funding Biden’s requested for the supplemental would just enhance the failed approach of the last nearly three years: Call it “Wave them in even faster.”
Sorry: With the Middle East on fire, Biden needs to finally break with his party’s open-borders extremists and (at a minimum) ensure the Border Patrol can at least keep terrorists from sneaking into America via Mexico.
That means not only getting serious about screening migrants at border checkpoints, but relieving the pressure so far fewer crossers can elude the Border Patrol entirely.
In other words, let the “asylum seeker” lines grow however long — prioritize actual border security, not processing every comer.
As it stands, some 1.5 million known “gotaways” have crossed since Biden took office: illegals that US officials spotted but couldn’t stop.
Atop that are nobody-knows-how-many who never got spotted at all.
And inadequate screening of the 2.6 million illegals that Biden has admitted has already led to multiple individuals on the terror watch list later getting caught in the nation’s interior.
Quite apart from the national crisis caused by the “regular” illegal migrants, this is beyond insane: Biden’s basically asking for a major terrorist strike, or a coordinated series of them, whenever the terror-masters choose.
Hence McConnell’s warning this month: “It will be difficult to get the [supplemental spending] package across the floor in the Senate without a credible border solution.”
And the Senate’s a far easier haul then the House, where some Republicans are soft even on helping Ukraine fend off Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
Indeed, Speaker Johnson has already pressured Biden with House passage of an “Israel-only” supplemental spending bill — exposing Democrats’ deep divisions over what should be a no-brainer.
America’s national interests demand backing for Israel and Ukraine, as well as investments to speed up US arms production in a world turned far more belligerent since Biden took over.
But real border security is also a top national need, and has become a political must if the president’s to get Congress to act on the rest of the package.
If Biden — or whichever of his advisers is actually calling the shots in the White House — doesn’t get real and start compromising, his presidency is guaranteed to go down as the most disastrous in the history of the Republic.