[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 103 (Thursday, July 25, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H5461]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
                      NO RUSH ON HOMELAND SECURITY

  (Mr. DUNCAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I know the new Homeland Security Department 
is going to pass with almost no dissenting votes, but it really is sad 
that we have to create a new cabinet level department just to get 
government agencies to cooperate with each other. Really it will just 
make the government bigger, more bureaucratic, more expensive and no 
safer.
  Many syndicated columnists are now questioning the rush here. Dan 
Thomasson in the Scripps Howard News Service, in the Scripps Howard 
papers all over the country, said the last thing the Nation needs now 
is a half-baked Department of Homeland Security removed from the oven 
too quickly because of obvious political considerations. He said this 
is a monumental task that if not carefully and cautionly tended could 
produce an unwieldy, overblown bureaucracy that would worsen the 
situation and leave the country even more vulnerable than it is now.
  I hope that we will heed these words of Dan Thomasson and not make 
the problem worse than it is now.

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