A military base is losing its funding for a new middle school so money can be shifted to Trump's border wall
- A Kentucky Army base will no longer receive a new middle school after $62.6 million in funding was diverted to President Donald Trump's border wall, The New York Times reported.
- The school, which would have served some 552 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, is one of 127 military construction projects that Pentagon officials said this week would be delayed or halted.
- In total, $3.6 billion in funding is being diverted towards Trump's long-promised wall.
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An Army base in Kentucky will no longer receive the new middle school it was expecting after its funding was diverted to President Donald Trump's border wall, The New York Times reported Thursday.
The middle school, which would have served some 552 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, is one of 127 military construction projects that Pentagon officials said this week would be delayed or halted so that $3.6 billion in funding could go towards Trump's long-promised wall.
Ultimately, $62.6 million will be diverted from the Fort Campbell middle school construction. The Times reported that this means the children will continue to use an aging, existing building where teachers use mobile carts to store books and homework due to the lack of classroom space.
Teachers at the Mahaffey Middle School currently cram multiple ongoing lessons into each classroom, and force some students to eat in the library because the cafeteria isn't big enough, The Times reported.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who represents Kentucky, told The Times in a statement that McConnell was "committed to protecting funding for the Fort Campbell middle school project" and blamed Democrats for the funding dispute.
"We would not be in this situation if Democrats were serious about protecting our homeland and worked with us to provide the funding needed to secure our borders during our appropriations process," the spokesman, David Popp, said.
Tennessee Rep. Jim Cooper, a Democrat, called the move a "funding grab" that would deprive the young children of US troops.
"President Trump has stooped to new lows in trying to illegally fund more border wall," Cooper said in a statement to the local CBS affiliate WTVF. "Our troops and their families deserve better... President Trump should not be hurting the troops with young children at Fort Campbell this way."