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Obama Administration had slashed budget for domestic bombing prevention by 45%!

You're trying really hard to turn this into Obama's fault. Either he made the cuts or he didn't.

It's interesting how the sequester must have passed the House without a single Republican vote. And how Obama and the Senate managed to cut spending without actually doing so. It's almost as if good things soley reside on one side....

ACA is killing the country and most the liberal programmed don't give a ****
 
Cut the other sides programs not mine coupled with the politics of hindsight.

That's my take on this thread.
 
Which is false.

Unfortunately it is not false. When Giffords was shot the media and the pundits immediately blamed the Tea Party, When Sandy Hook happened the media and the pundits immediately came out with a gun totin' conservative, when the Colorado shooting happened they also blamed white conservatives.


I don't recall many Democrats out there pushing for the sequester to happen. From what I can remember, it was mostly Republicans (and more specifically, Tea Party nuts) who were happy about the sequester happening.

Dont you remember last year when they put the sequester in the bill...the super committee was to find places to cut...even amount of Republicans & Democrats on that panel...they couldnt come to a agreement so the sequester went forth...even through the bargaining at the last second failed to reach a deal...so sequester it was. Hell, even the Bald Cajun said the sequester was the best deal democrats could hope for because it cuts defense spending.

There's a big difference between agreeing to agree a year and a half down the road and actively campaigning to force something through.

So you are saying it is OK to make a promise and an agreement then not follow through with it?

Who are the leading people who are saying this?
Here are 47,300,000 hits on google about conservatives being blamed for the Boston bombing
https://www.google.com/search?q=bos...rome.0.57j62.11018j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

CNN’s national security analyst Peter Bergen suggested more than once that a, “right-wing extremist group” could be behind the attacks.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews falsely claimed that, “Normally domestic terrorists, people, tend to be on the far right.”

“I’ll bet good money it’s a right-wing nutjob. Today is April 15, Boston Harbor was where the original Tea Party took place and the on-going gun-safety legislation makes it the mostly likely culprit,” commenter Linda Ginsburg wrote.

DAVID AXELROD: OBAMA BELIEVES CONSERVATIVES BEHIND BOSTON MARATHON BOMBINGS

NPR: Conservatives tied to Boston Marathon bombing because of Hitler's birthday

Thats just a few of the quotes from the pundits blaming conservatives for the Boston bombings.
 
Is it the Feds job to protect the state or is it the state's job to protect the state? Why are you wanting to rely on Federal money to protect yourself?

I am not. I was just pointing out that this Administration is cutting important things while not cutting out frivolous expenses. If they are going to rob the citizenry of its wealth at least dont waste it on crap while cutting the programs that actually might help out and protect the citizenry.

Protect the citizenry through national defense or have a Motown party at the WH on the tax payers dime....which one to cut out....WOW thats a tough decision.

Personally I wish the Fed would actually follow the Constitution & what it says its powers are rather than assuming powers they were not given.
 
Unfortunately it is not false. When Giffords was shot the media and the pundits immediately blamed the Tea Party, When Sandy Hook happened the media and the pundits immediately came out with a gun totin' conservative, when the Colorado shooting happened they also blamed white conservatives.
I meant it's false to accuse any rational person, regardless of their political leanings of this. The left blames the right, and the right blames the left. To believe one or the other is silly.

Dont you remember last year when they put the sequester in the bill...the super committee was to find places to cut...even amount of Republicans & Democrats on that panel...they couldnt come to a agreement so the sequester went forth...even through the bargaining at the last second failed to reach a deal...so sequester it was. Hell, even the Bald Cajun said the sequester was the best deal democrats could hope for because it cuts defense spending.
That's not really what I meant. What I meant is that there was Congress people who WANTED sequester, not just resigned to it.

So you are saying it is OK to make a promise and an agreement then not follow through with it?
The promise was made between both Democrats and Republicans. The sequester was their punishment for not being able to come to an agreement. So, in this case, I obviously do not approve.

But, again, what I was talking about was how some of the Republicans (again, mostly Tea Party) were wanting the sequester. They did not want Congress to keep its promise to itself, it wanted the sequester.


Here are 47,300,000 hits on google about conservatives being blamed for the Boston bombing
https://www.google.com/search?q=bos...rome.0.57j62.11018j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Actually, after looking at some of the links, I didn't see people blaming conservatives nearly as much as I saw conservatives acting like they are the victim of liberal persecution. Considering how often conservative media tries to blame the rest of media for being persecuted, I'm not really moved on this point.

Thats just a few of the quotes from the pundits blaming conservatives for the Boston bombings.
I just watched the Peter Bergen segment and he did not blame right-wing extremists. I watched the Chris Matthews part, and he actually corrected himself so as to NOT accuse them of being right wing, just terrorists. I don't know who Linda Ginsburg is and every link I've seen to the quote she supposedly made comes back to Glenn Beck's website and a webpage which does not exist. David Axelrod did not say anything about conservatives, just that it was tax day. And NPR didn't say anything, one person said something and even that was a reasonable conclusion which did not state it was the work of a right wing person.

So from all the things you posted, only one (the NPR) could I see any legitimate link between someone in the media accusing this of being the work of a right wing extremist.
 
Since the centerpiece of it is the right's brainchild, you must be very proud.

sell that **** somewhere else, no one here is buying
 
sell that **** somewhere else, no one here is buying

I'm just basing it on the fact that it's based on Romneycare, and it wasn't that long ago that Newt Gingrich thought the personal mandate was the way to go.

Newt Gingrich Supported an Individual Mandate as Recently as May 2009 - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic

We might have gotten that anyway, McCain supported it.

She said she first heard the concept of the "individual mandate" in a Miami speech in the early 1990s by Sen. John McCain, a conservative Republican from Arizona, to counter the "Hillarycare" the Clintons were proposing.

Read more here: Health bill included big Republican idea: individual mandate | McClatchy
 
$20 million budget under Bush became $11 million under Obama

Both administrations neglected domestic bombing prevention, devoting a tiny fraction of the $1 billion earmarked for IED prevention overseas
Obama issued a lengthy 'National Policy for Countering Improvised Explosive Devices' in February but a spokesman won't say if it failed


Barack Obama's administration has cut the budget nearly in half for preventing domestic bombings, MailOnline can reveal.
Under President George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security had $20 million allocated for preventing the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by terrorists working inside the United States. The current White House has cut that funding down to $11 million.

That assessment comes from Robert Liscouski, a former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15 that killed three Americans and injured at least 173 others.






Read more: Obama administration has SLASHED budget for domestic bombing prevention by 45 per cent, says former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary | Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

11 million on low probability event prevention? Probably a bit too high still.
 
$20 million budget under Bush became $11 million under Obama

Both administrations neglected domestic bombing prevention, devoting a tiny fraction of the $1 billion earmarked for IED prevention overseas
Obama issued a lengthy 'National Policy for Countering Improvised Explosive Devices' in February but a spokesman won't say if it failed


Barack Obama's administration has cut the budget nearly in half for preventing domestic bombings, MailOnline can reveal.
Under President George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security had $20 million allocated for preventing the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by terrorists working inside the United States. The current White House has cut that funding down to $11 million.

That assessment comes from Robert Liscouski, a former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15 that killed three Americans and injured at least 173 others.






Read more: Obama administration has SLASHED budget for domestic bombing prevention by 45 per cent, says former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary | Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Sounds like the rest of that budget needs to go as well. Apparently we aren't able to prevent bombings just because we spent $9 million on it. I can picture some member of congress proud of himself because he solved terrorist bombing threats by creating a $20 million budget for it. For some inexplicable reason people relate government budgets to performance. You don't solve problems by throwing money at them. And you don't throw money at impossible tasks. Bombings, like other crimes, cannot be prevented. The only sane approach we can take as a nation is to live our lives normally and stay vigilant in the hopes that someone can discover and report suspicious activity before the next one of these disasters is about to happen. As far as I'm concerned, the best thing the government did was to react to this bombing seriously and bring the perpetrators to justice quickly. That could possible demotivate future bombers more than a $9 million waste of money.
 
A reminder. Congress = Senate + House. 2011 the Senate rejected Obama's 2012 budget proposal 97 -0. The 2013 proposal was rejected 99-0. The Senate majority is democrat. Carry on.
 
Can someone identify a single item that could be cut from anything, anywhere that wouldn't piss off a bunch of people. Until this tragedy occurred, America didn't really haver a lot of bombing problems. If you saw $20M allocated to bombing studies, you'd have asked why we wasted so much money on this. Now we'll be spending billions on it.

Maybe the ant farm thing? I can't envision there being too many people involved in that operation. But if there is, they can go ahead and start their own private donation thing and fund their own research... or whatever it is the taxpayers are paying for that has to do with ants.

But I'd say since our economy not only stalled, but went backwards, that it is more than time to start going through the check book and exing things out. But we have the IMF and the top global finance experts giving us financial advice, telling us to get our debt and budget in order because we're holding up the order of things.

It is not good.
 
I'll appreciate a link to the ant farm project. Then, I'll see if I can find the defenders. Who knows, maybe you found something that we can all agree upon. But you're reaching pretty far in order to find this one minor (I assume) expenditure. And therein lies the problem.

In spite of this - do you understand my point?

As for the IMF etc., sure, they can say "get your house in order" but since the entire world is funded with our consumption, both government and civilian, they seem to be posturing.



Maybe the ant farm thing? I can't envision there being too many people involved in that operation. But if there is, they can go ahead and start their own private donation thing and fund their own research... or whatever it is the taxpayers are paying for that has to do with ants.

But I'd say since our economy not only stalled, but went backwards, that it is more than time to start going through the check book and exing things out. But we have the IMF and the top global finance experts giving us financial advice, telling us to get our debt and budget in order because we're holding up the order of things.

It is not good.
 
I'll appreciate a link to the ant farm project. Then, I'll see if I can find the defenders. Who knows, maybe you found something that we can all agree upon. But you're reaching pretty far in order to find this one minor (I assume) expenditure. And therein lies the problem.

In spite of this - do you understand my point?

As for the IMF etc., sure, they can say "get your house in order" but since the entire world is funded with our consumption, both government and civilian, they seem to be posturing.

The California Academy of Sciences is receiving nearly $1 million in stimulus funds to send researchers to the Southwest Indian Ocean Islands and East Africa to capture, photograph and analyze thousands of exotic ants.

Stimulus Slammed: Republican Senators Release Report Alleging Waste - ABC News

I forgot about this:

The Coburn-McCain report takes issue with stimulus spending on projects like one that entailed research on how cocaine affects monkeys. The Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center was awarded $71,623 to study what the report calls, "Monkeys Getting High for Science."

Sure, the combined total is under $2 million dollars, but the point I was making in my previous post remains: that we're simply writing too many checks.

But yeah, you take away that funding... and the people that were relying on it get pissed. I guess not everyone can be happy when it comes to our budget, though.
 
I'll happily concede that this $2M would likely get all around support (except for the direct beneficiaries, their employees and their contractors).

So, I'll have to change my question to asking for anything substantial that we could get agreement on that would materially impact the spending pattern?




Stimulus Slammed: Republican Senators Release Report Alleging Waste - ABC News

I forgot about this:



Sure, the combined total is under $2 million dollars, but the point I was making in my previous post remains: that we're simply writing too many checks.

But yeah, you take away that funding... and the people that were relying on it get pissed. I guess not everyone can be happy when it comes to our budget, though.
 
I'll happily concede that this $2M would likely get all around support (except for the direct beneficiaries, their employees and their contractors).

So, I'll have to change my question to asking for anything substantial that we could get agreement on that would materially impact the spending pattern?

I'm sure there is, but we'd have to put up with people being upset. Take for instance, our intelligence community. See, I understand the value of intelligence. Sun Tsu, foreknowledge and all of that. But I have to question the sheer number of agencies that our country currently pays for. I think we have over 20 intelligence agencies. I believe all the branches in the military have their own intelligence unit.

Or, for that matter, just think of the sheer amount of agencies and units of people that have been created over the years by legislation.

I'm sure that there are plenty of 'pet project' type of things within our system that could easily be cut, because they were created to make a Congressmen or Senator happy, for example... and probably not for actual American citizen, taxpayer, need.

But I don't think we should necessarily be looking for agreement right now. We should analyze what's important, and what's not. We can always get the bipartisanship later.
 
Regrettably, it is that very partisanship that has immobilized out thought processes.

You make perfect sense regarding the intelligence agencies. Too many costing too much. How could anybody disagree? But just in the last few days, look at the outcry because of the lowering of investment in domestic IED research. That isn't even partisan really except for the ulta partisans (Obama's fault, Not Obama's fault).

Another example is out tax code. Look what a nightmare that is. Everybody agres it should be simplified but nobody can agree to actually do it.

As a businessman and a kind of hyper-organized person, the whole mess seems really poorly structured to me. But instead of repair, we add more and more complexities ever legislative session and even then large groups complain because their legislation has not yet been added to the tangle.

Pet projects can always be justified. Lets say my Senator attaches an amendment to a defense bill to allocate funds to build a huge statue of Specklebang. Think of all those sculptors that would lose work if it were eliminated not to mention the custodians that remove bird poop from my head and shoulders (the statue, not me).

Who will determine what is important?



I'm sure there is, but we'd have to put up with people being upset. Take for instance, our intelligence community. See, I understand the value of intelligence. Sun Tsu, foreknowledge and all of that. But I have to question the sheer number of agencies that our country currently pays for. I think we have over 20 intelligence agencies. I believe all the branches in the military have their own intelligence unit.

Or, for that matter, just think of the sheer amount of agencies and units of people that have been created over the years by legislation.

I'm sure that there are plenty of 'pet project' type of things within our system that could easily be cut, because they were created to make a Congressmen or Senator happy, for example... and probably not for actual American citizen, taxpayer, need.

But I don't think we should necessarily be looking for agreement right now. We should analyze what's important, and what's not. We can always get the bipartisanship later.
 
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