Impending Shutdown of DHS

[Greenday]

For those who don't know (Which seems to be most people not affected by it), the budget for the Department of Homeland Security is running out and it's time for it to be renewed. There's one catch: currently, the DHS funding bill includes funding for helping illegal immigrants. As the Republicans state, why the hell does a DHS funding bill have ANYTHING to do with helping illegal immigrants out? They want to amend it so it strictly sticks to DHS and nothing else. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

So currently they are duking it out over the funding for illegal immigrants. Major players in Congress and the Senate are claiming it's not a big deal if DHS has to shutdown as most people are considered essential (Then why the hell shut it down) and it's just going to hurt administrative types. What they DON'T mention is that besides the tons of non-administrative types who will be furloughed, thousands and thousands of contractors will get screwed over as a result.

Once again, we are getting screwed over the dick measuring contest that is our insane two party system that does nothing to benefit the people.

[Gravekeeper]

For those who don't know (Which seems to be most people not affected by it), the budget for the Department of Homeland Security is running out and it's time for it to be renewed. There's one catch: currently, the DHS funding bill includes funding for helping illegal immigrants. As the Republicans state, why the hell does a DHS funding bill have ANYTHING to do with helping illegal immigrants out? They want to amend it so it strictly sticks to DHS and nothing else. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

You have it the wrong way around. Its a poison pill. The Republicans inserted a measure to defund Obama's immigration reform into the funding bill for DHS. They're trying to piggyback it on the funding bill and the Dems are refusing and demanding a clean version of the bill.

Its the same sort of immature tantrum bullshit that lead to the debt ceiling showdown.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

As a person who has worked a government job before, honestly if you're expecting the voting public to care it's just not going to happen. Bar none, the worst benefits and options I've EVER had at a job was a government job and that doesn't even get into the possibility of a union strike or some politician that didn't want to tax so just axed people instead.

Essentially, government is a political discussion and as a result it is OK for you to lose your job because a different party won. That's sort of accepted in bureaucracy. So to your point, I think what you neglect is that it DOES help people. This behavior allows to political parties to score voter points on a target demographic a majority of Americans think are lazy, entitled, and have better benefits than they do. It's beneficial because it's accepted that a budget shortfall can be borne on the backs of those workers temporarily. And because those workers have no legal recourse to sue legislators directly or the organization (congress), what you have is a unique group in American society that can be abused by their employer with impunity so long as any collective bargaining is honored.

Cooincidentily, this is why collective bargaining exists in government. Those unions formed because the behavior is recurrent and backed by voters which can make taking a Government job extremely costly in terms of stress and finance.

[Greenday]

You have it the wrong way around. Its a poison pill. The Republicans inserted a measure to defund Obama's immigration reform into the funding bill for DHS. They're trying to piggyback it on the funding bill and the Dems are refusing and demanding a clean version of the bill.

Its the same sort of immature tantrum bullshit that lead to the debt ceiling showdown.

Figures. I can't stand this crap of politicians trying to add on additional stuff that has nothing to do with the main focus of the bill.

[MadMike]

I'm not so sure that Homeland Insecurity shutting down would be such a bad thing.

[AccountingDrone]

I would be thrilled if we could get rid of TSA and Homeland Security - I can not see where they have done anything beneficial in the past decade.

[Tama]

They provided people with jobs...that's about it.

[s_stabeler]

can I just point out that if anti-terrorist police are doing their job properly, they should, in fact, seem to be useless? ( I'm not referring to checks at airports here, but stopping attacks before they even get that far)

it's similar, incidentally, to why it's fairly common for there to be a high false positive rate for people being stopped by security at airports- the vast majority of attacks are stopped before they ever get that far.

Oh, I'm not saying that Homeland Security is perfect, but they're not completely useless. (it's why I don't believe the government needs any more powers to combat terrorism- the primary issue is that information isn't passed on quickly enough. ( the underwear bomber could have been stopped from boarding the pane had a warning given to the US government been passed on))

[TheHuckster]

I would argue that the roles of the CIA, FBI, and NSA fulfill that responsibility already. You could even have an individual department within those agencies that deal solely with domestic and international terrorism without it being its own contribution to the federal alphabet soup.

[lordlundar]

can I just point out that if anti-terrorist police are doing their job properly, they should, in fact, seem to be useless? ( I'm not referring to checks at airports here, but stopping attacks before they even get that far)

There's a fallacy with that. the Anti-terrorist sub groups of existing organizations were already in existence prior to the DHS being formed but they were never coordinated and kept tripping over themselves. The DHS was supposed to be a coordination system to make the groups work together more efficiently.

"Supposed to" being the key phrase here. There were some notable successes but those would have had the same results if the organizations would work together in the first place. For the most part the DHS ended up being another bureaucratic hurdle to vault instead of the streamlining effort it was meant to be.

[s_stabeler]

my point is that the DHS does have a function in fighting against terrorism- does the DHS need reform? yes. Should it be scrapped entirely? probably not.

as for splitting the functions between the CIA, FBI and NSA, there's a basic problem there. Namely, your average terrorist plot crosses the borders of all the agencies. It's not even necessarily those agencies' fault that information isn't passed on- the FBI, for example, might notice someone's communicating with someone in ( say) Syria- the CIA on the other hand, might know that person is part of IS, but don't know that they are in charge of recruiting people to commit terrorist attacks abroad- therefore, they aren't monitoring who'se contacting said individual. THAT is why having an organisation that can (attempt) to see both sides is important- since in such an organisation, they can more easily see that something looks suspicious.

[Greenday]

I would argue that the roles of the CIA, FBI, and NSA fulfill that responsibility already. You could even have an individual department within those agencies that deal solely with domestic and international terrorism without it being its own contribution to the federal alphabet soup.

I would be thrilled if we could get rid of TSA and Homeland Security - I can not see where they have done anything beneficial in the past decade.

I'm not so sure that Homeland Insecurity shutting down would be such a bad thing.

I'd say that these three people are VERY unaware of what DHS does. There's quite a lot of work and research DHS does that's not within the scope of other groups.

[Gravekeeper]

I'd say that these three people are VERY unaware of what DHS does. There's quite a lot of work and research DHS does that's not within the scope of other groups.

Well, to be brutally honest what it does is piss away billions of dollars, violate Constitutional rights, break the law and grossly mismanage itself to the detriment of its own employee morale. That said, they've consolidated too many other government agencies under the DHS at this point to shut it down without creating a massive cluster fuck.

Like most of what came out of the Iraq war, all it ultimately did was piss off Americans, oppress brown people and shovel money to defence contractors ( no offence. Well, unless you work for Haliburton. -.- ).

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

Well, to be brutally honest what it does is piss away billions of dollars, violate Constitutional rights, break the law and grossly mismanage itself to the detriment of its own employee morale.

To be fair, you could describe MANY government agencies this way.

[MadMike]

I'd say that these three people are VERY unaware of what DHS does.

I believe the term for what they do is "security theater."