Last month I shared my thoughts about the difference between someone with charisma and someone with actual business sense. This month I want to share another example of business sense and the proper way to share it.
I know a learned individual who spent the majority of his career in government foreign services work. He worked in many different countries and in my opinion is an expert in global economics. He has written several books and is currently working on one now which I hope to share on this site in the near future. He has regularly been an Op-Ed author for the Washington Times. Just last week, he shared his perspective on President Trump’s Emergency Declaration with the junior Senator from North Carolina.
I’ll share the exchange below then provide some closing thoughts….
Dear Senator Tillis,
I appreciate your response and understand your reluctance to allow future presidents to use appropriated funds to tear down walls.
But consider this: when would it be appropriate to declare a national emergency to tear down a border wall? By doing so, the flood of illegal aliens, human trafficking, drug smuggling, and criminal gangs would not only be allowed, but encouraged. Under what circumstances would allowing these things to occur be in our national interest, especially to the extent of needing to declare a national emergency to make it happen?
This is the sort of perverse logic which is taking over the Democrat Party and sadly Republicans, apparently like yourself, seem to be acquiescing to. Frankly I get this criticism from Republicans all the time from all corners of North Carolina and beyond.
The statistics don’t lie and you know from accounts by our ICE officers at the border that the ONLY real way to prevent the problems that are occurring there is to build a wall. Democrats and Republicans just a few years ago agreed on this point and passed legislation to fund such a wall at much more than a measly $5 billion, a mere pittance of our annual federal budget. Given that it costs us over $300 billion a year to provide illegals with social services, Congressional allowance of this type of funding is inexcusable. If you want the breakdown of the $300 billion, I would be more than glad to send it to you.
I strongly recommend that you rethink your position on the wall issue. Perhaps you and your Republican colleagues should look at it this way: on the one hand, Democrats want these illegals to get benefits and stay together as families because we are a compassionate people. On the other hand, it seems perfectly fine with the Democrats to kill U.S. citizens at birth. If this isn’t perverse logic, what is?
It’s time Republicans if they want to get reelected to go on offense. Every day, between crazy socialist promises, infanticide, scandals, endless investigations with proven liars, the Democrats provide ample red meat for Republicans to pounce on. Why don’t you do it instead of fearing the nonsense of what might lie ahead if radical Dems take over? If Republicans like you take a stand, the Dems won’t prevail. Please see to it that they don’t.
Sincerely yours,
Robert A. Taft
This and your response will be distributed to a large North Carolina audience.
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Dear Mr. Taft:
Thank you for taking the time to contact me about President Trump’s National Emergency Declaration. I appreciate hearing from you.
As you may know, on February 15, 2019, President Trump issued a national emergency declaration in order to provide the rest of the funds he had previously requested through Congress to secure the southern border.
Let me be clear: I strongly agree with President Trump that there is a humanitarian and drug crisis at our border. It’s unfortunate that some elected officials are denying this reality, because the numbers do not lie. Every year, hundreds of undocumented immigrants die trying to cross our border, and tens of thousands of Americans die from heroin-related overdoses, the vast majority of which is smuggled from the southern border.
That is why I have repeatedly supported and voted in favor of President Trump’s plans to secure our borders and reform our nation’s broken immigration system. In fact, last Congress I worked directly with President Trump and my Senate colleagues to introduce legislation based on President Trump’s border security plan. This bill, known as the Secure and Succeed Act, included $25 billion for border security including walls, barriers, and other infrastructure. However, this legislation did not ultimately gain the support needed from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to become law. I wholeheartedly share President Trump’s frustration that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have continually blocked the reasonable and good faith efforts to secure our borders and I stand with him in his efforts to protect the American people.
Due to Congressional obstruction, I understand why President Trump took the step of making a national emergency declaration, which would provide about $8 billion for border security infrastructure.
Please know that my concern with the emergency declaration has nothing to do with the President’s goal of securing the border, but it is about maintaining Congress’ power of the purse and preventing a future president from exploiting this precedent for their own agenda.
For example, in recent weeks, we have heard from two prominent elected officials who entertained the notion of removing walls and physical barriers, effectively opening up our borders. If we had a president who shared their views, they could also declare a national emergency, and use those same funds, originally appropriated by Congress for other purposes, to literally tear down border security infrastructure that already exists.
I applaud President Trump’s efforts and determination to deliver on the promises he made to the American people and I will continue to work with him on ways to provide for billions of dollars in additional funding to finally secure our border and protect the American people. I know we can get it done.
Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. Please do not hesitate to contact me again about other important issues.
Sincerely,
Thom Tillis
U.S. Senator
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Website: https://www.tillis.senate.gov
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This is what I call a solid exchange of thoughts, ideas and philosophy on an extremely important topic. I give Senator Tillis credit for his prompt and thoughtful response. But here is my concern. His reason for opposing the declaration is flawed in several ways.
(1) His response ignored Mr. Taft’s commentary regarding
socialism, infanticide and the economics brought on by illegal immigrants in this country.
(2) His reason, (which felt largely political) isn’t an apples to apples comparison to what is being done by this administration.
(3) A Commander-in- Chief who would decide to declare an emergency and tear down our border walls is breaking his Presidential vow to “preserve and protect and defend the constitution of the United States. This includes the second amendment as well protecting the safety and security of the American people.
Despite their differences in philosophy and thinking, I applaud the dialogue and exchange that took place. I wish this same kind of frank, open and educated dialogue could take place on capitol hill.
Topics mentioned by Mr. Taft as well as other media driven topics like the banishment of the Electoral College and the Green New Deal need to be addressed. Too often and to the detriment of the masses the media drives the message and it is a message filled with errors, inaccuracies, falsehoods, feel good sound bites and impossible end results.
Until next time…