Bush Backs Down on Border Commitment: We Just Can't Afford to Protect America

While traveling on Tuesday of this week, I saw the breaking story in USA Today about President Bush backing down on his commitment to add 2,000 more border agents this year. The story is now being picked up by other sources like Human Events and WorldNetDaily. The budget was just too tight, with all our foreign military activities in the war against terror, so we'll have to continue leaving our border largely unguarded for the convenience of enemies wishing to enter this nation. Anybody see a problem with this picture?

From USA Today's Jan. 24 story:

But in an interview with USA TODAY, [Homeland Security Secretary Tom ] Ridge scoffed at the notion of adding so many agents and said it would be an inefficient use of precious homeland security dollars.

"The notion that you're going to have 10,000 is sort of a fool's gold," Ridge said. "It's nice to say you're going to have 10,000 more Border Patrol agents in five years, but what other part of Homeland Security do you want to take the money from?"

Hmm, how about the part of Homeland Security that monitors the personal lives of American citizens and restricts our liberties, while allowing foreign agents to stroll across our borders without even the hassle of being patted down (or fondled) by irritable Transportation Security Administration workers?

Limited budgets have never been a problem to any recent President when they really wanted to do something. We can sink hundreds of billions of dollars into Iraq, but we can't protect America. Seems like a shame, frankly.

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit