Yeah, Right, Whatever

Last year, the US Senate promised to add border patrol agents and detention beds every year for five years. Then, when it came time to budget for them, they didn't quite get it right, and then voted against amendments to fix the budget.

The intelligence overhaul bill that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in December called for 2,000 new agents and 8,000 new detention beds every year for the next five years in order to meet a threat posed by illegal aliens.
Yesterday's votes were on amendments to the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, which funds only 1,000 more agents and 2,240 more detention beds in fiscal 2006.
Sen. John Ensign, Nevada Republican, had called for another 1,000 agents, and Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, called for 5,760 more beds in order to meet the goals set by last year's bill, with both increases being paid for by reducing grants to state and local governments.

The reason why both of those amendments was pretty sound- they wanted to pull funding from first responders. Oh, yeah... that makes sense. But... I bet... if the Senators looked, they could have found the money somewhere.

Instead of enforcing cuts of almost 1 percent on domestic programs whose budgets Congress passes each year - as these lawmakers promised when voting for the budget in April - the Senate Appropriations Committee has actually increased their budgets by about 2 percent.

Ummm... isn't the majority party (the Republicans) supposed to be party of smaller government and lower budgets? Aren't they supposed to be putting an end to pork barrel spending and waste? Oh, well... nice to know our elected officials are mavericks who won't "go along to get along."

What is more important, Senators? Your pet projects or national security? Don't bother answering... your votes tell the tale.

Do us a favor... do what you were elected to do or get out of the way and let someone else (someone who CARES about the future of our nation and the safety of our citizens) do it.