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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMilbank: House GOP cut embassy security funding $331 million in fiscal 2012
Forget Big Bird. What about the Snuffleupagus in the room?
By Dana Milbank, Published: October 9, WaPost
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As if to remind us of this, Rep. Darrell Issa, the indefatigable Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has called a hearing for noon Wednesday even though Congress is in a weeks-long recess. The emergency cause for the hearing? Probing The Security Failures of Benghazi lapses in diplomatic security that led to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya.
The purpose of the pre-election hearing, presumably, is to embarrass the administration for inadequate diplomatic security. But Issa seems unaware of the irony that diplomatic security is inadequate partly because of budget cuts forced by his fellow Republicans in Congress.
For fiscal 2013, the GOP-controlled House proposed spending $1.934 billion for the State Departments Worldwide Security Protection program well below the $2.15 billion requested by the Obama administration. House Republicans cut the administrations request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012. (Negotiations with the Democrat-controlled Senate restored about $88 million of the administrations request.) Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Republicans proposed cuts to her department would be detrimental to Americas national security a charge Republicans rejected.
Ryan, Issa and other House Republicans voted for an amendment in 2009 to cut $1.2 billion from State operations, including funds for 300 more diplomatic security positions. Under Ryans budget, non-defense discretionary spending, which includes State Department funding, would be slashed nearly 20 percent in 2014, which would translate to more than $400 million in additional cuts to embassy security.
The Romney campaign argues that such extrapolations are unfair, because Romney and Ryan havent specified which programs they would cut and by how much. And thats the problem: The danger in Romneys plan is not in the few cuts he has detailed but in the many he has not. If Romney follows through on the tax cuts he has endorsed, increases defense spending by $2.1 trillion over a decade as promised and maintains Social Security and Medicare as they are for those 55 and older, hed need to cut everything else government does by nearly a third or more than $200 billion in 2016.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-forget-about-big-bird/2012/10/09/5f9a411c-1258-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)budkin
(6,713 posts)Curious to see how this plays out...
GoCubsGo
(32,086 posts)Except maybe by the folks at Current and Free Speech TV, and the night time crew at MSNBC. I almost guarantee not a whiff of it will make it to Fox.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)gateley
(62,683 posts)Here's the bill
Here's the vote results
Should be pretty simple (I say as I sit on my sofa drinking coffee and making uneducated pronouncements).
ErikJ
(6,335 posts)Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) on Tuesday defended voting to cut embassy security and said the deaths of four Americans in Libya resulted from the Obama administration's failure to "prioritize" their protection.
Chaffetz's comments came a few hours ahead of a hearing by the Oversight Committee on whether the State Department and the White House ignored evidence that an attack on the compound was imminent.
Chaffetz was asked by host Soledad O'Brien if he had voted to cut funding for embassy security in the past during an interview on CNN's "Starting Point."
"Absolutely. Look we have to make priorities and choices in this country," said Chaffetz. "We have ... 15,0000 contractors in Iraq. We have more than 6,000 contractors, a private army, there, for President Obama, in Baghdad. And were talking about, can we get two dozen or so people into Libya to help protect our forces? When youre in tough economic times, you have to make difficult choices. You have to prioritize things."
video/article/ > http://thehill.com/video/house/261153--rep-chaffetz-white-house-claiming-ignorance-on-warning-about-libya-attack-is-totally-not-true
porphyrian
(18,530 posts)aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)"...Staff for House Democrats allege in a memo to Democratic members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that Republicans on the committee withheld information from Democrats in the investigation surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi Libya:
Although Chairman [Darrell] Issa [R-CA] has claimed publicly that we are pursuing this on a bipartisan basis, the Committees investigation into the attack in Benghazi has been extremely partisan. The Chairman and his staff failed to consult with Democratic Members prior to issuing public letters with unverified allegations, concealed witnesses and refused to make one hearing witness available to Democratic staff, withheld documents obtained by the Committee during the investigation, and effectively excluded Democratic Committee Members from joining a poorly-planned congressional delegation to Libya. ..."
spanone
(135,857 posts)and the media is letting them get away with it
otherwise this would be their headlines....'republicans refuse security funding for benghazi'
Earth_First
(14,910 posts)It's bullshit (again...)
WiffenPoof
(2,404 posts)I'm afraid that this isn't going to go well for the President. It was completely devastating. The fact that the budget was cut will probably not mean a damn thing to the RW and their supporters.
-PLA
Arkana
(24,347 posts)ejbr
(5,856 posts)4% tax hike on the rich or 4 dead patriots....hmmm.
Cha
(297,503 posts)Thanks ErikJ!
vlyons
(10,252 posts)but he will look like an ass when the state Dept reminds the committee of Hilary's warning on Natl security.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,135 posts)Aldo Leopold
(685 posts)of this country?
I mean, seriously, what do they stand for? They are running us into the ground.
City Lights
(25,171 posts)Republicans are anti-American!
tallahasseedem
(6,716 posts)Alright folks, we had a bad week but it's turning around right now!
Cha
(297,503 posts)riversedge
(70,272 posts)Cha
(297,503 posts)one from my fb page.