The “Chicken Little” administration continued their “sky is falling” campaign this weekend and into the week as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Monday that the across-the-board spending cuts of sequestration will make the United States more vulnerable to a terror attack.
Napolitano said that because the $85 billion in cuts are spread among domestic and defense budgets and don’t differentiate about what is affected they make it difficult to mitigate security threats.
The secretary said, “We’re going to do everything we can to minimize that risk, but the sequester makes it awfully, awfully tough.”
“Put simply, the automatic budget reduction mandated by sequestration would be disruptive and destructive to our nation’s security and economy,” Napolitano said during a White House media briefing. “It would negatively affect the mission readiness and capabilities of the men and women on our front lines. It would undermine the significant progress we’ve made over the past 10 years to build the nation’s preparedness and resiliency.”
Napolitano said the department has begun to furlough Customs and Border Protection officers at ports of entry where the average wait time to customs will increase by as much as 50 percent, she estimated, and at the busiest airports peak wait times “could easily grow to four hours or more.”
Her comments are puzzling; furloughs require a minimum of 30 days notice according to federal law. Was this a misstatement or a flat-out lie?
Worse yet this is the same woman who only a day earlier said that national security would not be threatened. Apparently Napolitano got a dressing down from the administration from her earlier comments and was sent out on Monday to wear her Henny Penny hat.
“I don’t think we can maintain the same level of security at all places around the country with sequester compared to without sequester,” said Napolitano, whose agency includes the Transportation Security Administration.
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood warned on Friday that air travelers could expect longer waits because of the cuts.
Napolitano said, “I think if you look at the combination of the effect on the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, we are having real impacts on the robustness of our defensive posture.”
There’s a line of responsibility that now every secretary in Obama’s cabinet has crossed. Whipping up fear among the American public to gain political advantage is the peak of political corruption; shame on them, each and every one of them.
Napolitano said the sequester cuts would reduce Coast Guard patrols by 25 percent and decrease the number of beds for immigration detentions.
“When you slow down the inspection of cargo ship containers by up to five days … that translates into lots and lots of jobs, good paying jobs, and those are going to be impacted,” Napolitano said.
Napolitano said that the nation’s disaster preparedness, response and recovery efforts will be effected by cuts that she says, “will reduce the disaster relief fund by nearly $1 billion, potentially affecting survivors recovering from Hurricane Sandy, the tornadoes in places like Tuscaloosa, Al and Joplin, Mo, and other major disasters across the country.”
“Threats from terrorism and the need to respond and recover from natural disasters do not diminish because of budget cuts,” Napolitano said. “We do not have the luxury of making significant reductions to our capabilities without significant impacts. We will work to continue to preserve our frontline priorities as best we can, but no amount of planning can mitigate the negative effects of sequestration.”
The message the administration and Napolitano has made is clear: any reduction in spending by the government will throw the nation into complete turmoil. How much longer can this bloated government that wastes more money than most nations spend continue feeding this bologna to its citizens and more importantly how much longer can those that bought into this malarkey in the last election continue to drink the Kool-Aid?
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