The budget shortfall in the Texas threatens cuts to the colleges and Medicaid, a costly border security operation is proving largely untouchable despite the President Donald Trump’s promises to build a wall and the plunging number of people caught illegally entering in to the U.S.
A prolonged oil slump has left the lawmakers about $6 billion short of the money needed to keep the status quo in the Texas, that attracts about a million new residents in every two years. But border security is one area where the Republicans, who control state government have all but refused to search for the savings.
During the key budget vote on Thursday, the House Democrats proposed taking dollars earmarked for the hundreds of state troopers on Texas-Mexico border and National Guard patrols, and putting that money toward other programs which they said are underfunded. One even proposed tacking onto a $218 billion spending bill a prohibition against using the state funds on Trump’s border wall.
But the proposals to scale back Texas $800 million border operation appeared largely symbolic during the marathon debate in GOP-controlled Legislature.
Illegal border crossings have plummeted in the recent months. In the March, the authorities caught 12,193 people at the southern border, which is the lowest monthly figure in at least 17 years, and also the second straight month that border arrests sharply dropped.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott on down embrace Trump’s plans to build a border wall, and the state is committing more money to the border security efforts.
The state is set to pass a new budget by the June, and just about every part of the Texas government is in line to take hit. The Public universities are fighting a proposed $300 million cut, and one of the Abbott’s biggest initiatives, bolstering pre-kindergarten is also getting a short shrift.
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More than $2 billion in proposed cost cuts to the Medicaid is also on table, and also many state agencies are under a hiring freeze.
The Senate had spared the border security from any cuts, and the House plan would also keep funding 50-hour workweeks on the border for nearly two dozen Texas Rangers and also 250 troopers. The House only stopped short of purchasing the new big-ticket defense items, such as more spy planes or the armored boats to patrol the Rio Grande.
The state officials have defended the price tag by with data which include drug seizures and arrests, though critics question the numbers. In the last year, an Associated Press review found that a child support evaders and low-level felony drug arrests were among the thousands of arrests being categorized as “high-threat criminals” along the border.
Some think the real “Trump effect” was pushing fearful people to get in to the U.S. before Trump took office. Border arrests in the October, November and December increased by about a third compared to the same period in the year 2015, before falling this year.
Mrudula Duddempudi.
