Barbara Boxer: DHS was a mistake. I regret voting for it.
Source: Washington Post
Barbara Boxer: DHS was a mistake. I regret voting for it.
I never imagined a president like Trump when I voted to create the Department of Homeland Security
By Barbara Boxer
Barbara Boxer of a member of the House of Representatives from 1983 to 1993 and the United States Senate from 1993 to 2017.
7/25/2020, 6:00:56 a.m.
Here are the three words that no elected official, serving or retired, wants to say: I was wrong.
Throughout my career, I was known for taking some very lonely votes. But I made a mistake in 2002 when I voted to create the Department of Homeland Security, which had been recommended by a number of members of Congress in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 the year before.
Looking back in the congressional record, I could hear the doubts in my voice.
I have tremendous misgivings about the size and shape of this department, I said. I warned that people could less accountable, hiding under layers of bureaucracy. I worried out loud on the Senate floor about including FEMA, the Coast Guard and immigration agencies into one giant department.
Still, most people thought this was a good idea. The memory of 9/11 haunted me: The hijacked airplanes were headed to California, which I represented, and Id lost constituents in the attack. The World Trade Center collapsed in the city where I was born.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/25/barbara-boxer-regret-dhs/
Blues Heron
(5,948 posts)Little late on the wakey wakey, but better late than never.
secondwind
(16,903 posts)Stepping up and admitting you made a mistake is not easy, especially for a politician
I applaud her
dlk
(11,597 posts)When it was created under the Bush administration, I was very concerned the agencys mission would evolve into what were seeing today. America doesnt need this agency. Its redundant at best and a vehicle for attacking Americans. Lets save some tax dollars (and the Constitution while were at it).
dlk
(11,597 posts)Using government resources to go after Americans who dont agree with them isnt anything new for Republicans Its merely more thoroughly plotted out and better funded.
Demsrule86
(68,768 posts)rurallib
(62,477 posts)it made me shake when i first heard it.
Unlike Boxer, I had little doubt where such a unit would head - especially under Republicans.
klook
(12,174 posts)Polly Hennessey
(6,812 posts)The name alone was a big reddish flag waving, waving, Barbara. All Congress critters should be aware of future consequences. The possibility of a moronic idiot leading us is always there......why, because we have a stupid 30%, we have an easily persuadable 30%. The two groups together can create a disaster. We now have a perfect storm: a stupid demonic tRump and a pandemic.
SharonAnn
(13,781 posts)fromVT
(266 posts)When we debated the DHS bill, I sided with 27 other senators on an amendment by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) to delay the merger of the 22 organizations included in the department for three years and set up checks and balances as well as robust congressional oversight. We lost that fight...
Senators were so frightened by 9/11 that they gave away their power. That was a pattern in those days.
Now we'll pay for it.
eppur_se_muova
(36,317 posts)Reorganized a bit and used properly, it could be a useful force against terrorism, foreign and domestic. To abuse it, you just need to label the wrong people 'terrorists'. Just as you can abuse police forces by labeling the wrong people 'criminal'.
It's not the tool that's deeply flawed so much as it is the tool-users.