Under fire, Napolitano halts projects for review

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

Under fire, Napolitano halts projects for review
By EILEEN SULLIVAN (AP) – 11 hours ago

WASHINGTON — Facing criticism for her handling of federal stimulus money, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that she would not start any new border construction projects while the department reviewed how projects were selected.

Napolitano has faced questions since The Associated Press reported last month that Homeland Security officials did not follow their internal priority lists when choosing which border checkpoints would get money for renovations. Under a process that is secretive and susceptible to political influence, officials planned to spend millions at tiny checkpoints, passing over busier, higher-priority projects.

The criticism peaked Wednesday when a senior Senate Democrat, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, said that, despite Napolitano's assurances, he felt Homeland Security was treating the economic stimulus plan like a "bottomless pit" of taxpayer money. It was unusually pointed criticism from a member of the president's own party about how the administration is handling economic recovery spending.
~snip~


Within hours, Napolitano promised not to begin any new border construction projects and set up a 30-day review of how the projects were selected.

"At the end of that review, I will make all information, not involving national security concerns, public," Napolitano wrote in a letter to Dorgan.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iNTUFCbZuSHnu19FT7SeuzXlzrLwD9AOM5980

[liberal N proud]

1. Caving at the first sign of dissent

This appears to be a pattern lately.

We have gone from one extreme to the next, moving from the full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes pushing through whatever the right wing wants to not doing anything because the right wing is against it.

The stimulus was meant to be spent. Spending creates jobs, "stimulates the economy" and jump starts the natural process.

[katkat]

4. spending to create jobs, but not wasting money

Spend it on something useful.

[alarimer]

7. This is good though because DHS is a cesspool under any President.

I believe it should be disbanded and the powers of all the agencies involved greatly reduced.

Right now they are allowed to do just about whatever they want and finally some Democrats are protesting (where were they when it was the Bush Administration doing this?).

[katkat]

2. dumb and dumber

What the heck were they thinking in that selection process? I hope we were at least buying some healthcare votes :sarcasm:

[Suji to Seoul]

3. Three things:

1: When did my ex-governor become a spineless jelly-fish? She had more backbone against the Phoenix 40 than she does about the Washington right wing?

2: Come on, Janet. . .we all know how these projects are selected. You live in a border state.
A) If the people are brown, speak Spanish and have funny names, we pay inflated contractor fees to build electrified razor wire fences.
B) If they are yellow and have black hair, we use our DHS forces to question their patriotism, loyalty and love of country (happened to many Chinese immigrants, with our historically poor attitudes toward Chinese immigrants).
C) If they are black, we trump up charges and keep them impoverished and imprisoned. Your department is a rubber stamp for all these.
D) If they are brown and speak Arabic or Farsi, we lock them in Gitmo and waterboard them until they confess to poisoning Socrates.

3: DHS is a waste of money. . .period.

[ixion]

5. DHS is a waste of money... at best

and a threat to the American Way of Life, for certain.

The DHS and the TSA need to be disbanded if we're ever to begin to restore our republic.

[joeycola]

6. seems Montana Democrats want some of the money.........

.........So far, Homeland Security has refused to release its internal priority list or its justifications for deviating from it. Instead, officials say the final project list is all they need to make public.

While Napolitano's review may disclose information about the selection process, it appears unlikely to change much. That's because Homeland Security has already signed many construction contracts, including low-priority projects such as the $15 million renovation for the sleepy border checkpoint at Whitetail, Mont.

Congress required the department to create a priority list in 2003 but the Obama administration added its own subjective decision-making to the process, making it vulnerable to the political influence that Obama pledged to keep out of the stimulus.

Two Montana Democratic senators, for instance, said they personally appealed to Napolitano to get money for lower-priority border projects. That includes the $15 million plan for Whitetail, which will build a checkpoint the size and cost of a Hollywood mansion at a crossing that serves three travelers a day.

Napolitano defended those decisions in her letter, saying northern border stations could be repaired for a fraction of the cost of busier checkpoints. But she said the department would review those decisions.

[Winterblues]

8. Heard on morning news today that estimated costs of maintaining border fence

that Bush* had erected would reach 6.5 billion dollars. I think that money could be spent in a much better manner.. Hell pay each person that tries to cross the border a thousand dollars to go back home and we would cut that six billion in half and have nothing but good feelings for America instead of hatred.

[SlingBlade]

9. Yep. Stupid is as stupid does

[bertman]

10. ANY, I repeat, ANY process that reduces the corruption or potential for corruption

by Democrats or Republicans should be welcomed by all of us taxpayers. Thank you, Senator Dorgan for bringing some heat on this situation.

In the words of the great brickmason/philosopher BuggerRat: "If they don't see the light, you gotta make 'um feel the heat."