[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8549]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           PENNY-WISE AND POUND-FOOLISH ON AMERICAN SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Woolsey) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, we've learned a lot over the last several 
days about the Republican commitment to both national security and 
fiscal responsibility. Last week, after the party of limited government 
spending passed the $690 billion defense authorization bill loaded with 
Pentagon pork, they jammed through a 4-year extension of key provisions 
of the USA PATRIOT Act. With a last-minute rushed vote with virtually 
no debate, the party of small government authorized more wiretapping 
and more poking through Americans' personal records.

                              {time}  1030

  Now today, our ongoing debate over fiscal year 2012 Homeland Security 
appropriations shows us that the majority's penny-wise, pound-foolish 
approach is in all of its glory. This bill breaks faith with first 
responders, underfunding key firefighter assistance grants and State 
Homeland Security grants that primarily train and equip first 
responders. Important programs will be rolled into a block grant so 
that localities will be competing for dwindling Federal Homeland 
Security grants, this and more undermining our communities' ability to 
deal with all kinds of hazards, including potential nuclear, chemical, 
and biological attacks.
  The bill cuts Homeland Security research and development programs by 
40 percent, Mr. Speaker. So while terrorist organizations are busily 
mastering technologies, we will be eliminating very important research 
projects in biological and explosives detection and advanced 
cybersecurity. Shame on us.
  Homeland Security already took a hit in fiscal year 2011. The 
majority, which claims to care about nothing more than the safety and 
security of the American people, wants to cut more than a billion 
dollars from last year's funding levels, and provides $2 billion less 
than what the President has proposed.
  Meantime, while we are nickel and diming our first responders, we are 
throwing $10 billion every month, $10 billion every month at a war in 
Afghanistan that is killing Americans, while doing very little, if 
anything, to advance our national security. Where are the budget 
cutters when it comes to appropriating that money? Where are all the 
hard questions and the tough scrutiny when it comes to funding a 
decade-long military occupation of Afghanistan that has failed in every 
conceivable way? Ten billion dollars a month on Afghanistan. For the 
price of about 6 days of fighting the war in Afghanistan, we could make 
up the difference between the President's Homeland Security request and 
the allocation in this bill. Six days.
  The majority clearly has one set of standards for important domestic 
programs and quite another for military adventures abroad. If you want 
to wage a war, no questions asked. But if you want to support first 
responders, or educate small children, or preserve Medicare, you better 
duck, because the budget axe is aimed at the people's priorities.
  I remind my friends in the majority that terrorists would strike us 
here on our shores, in our homeland, in our capital. An enormous 
military footprint that is stomping down in a sovereign country 
thousands of miles away, a country where Osama bin Laden wasn't hiding 
and al Qaeda is barely active, is not where we need to be putting our 
efforts.
  Let's do the smart thing. Let's fully fund Homeland Security and 
let's save money and lives by bringing our troops home.

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