Posted on 11/08/2002 8:28:28 AM PST by Truth Telling Guy
Edited on 11/08/2002 11:47:21 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Bush, Lott Wrangle Over New Homeland Security Agency, Lame-Duck Session
By Scott Lindlaw Associated Press Writer
Published: Nov 8, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush summoned GOP congressional leaders Friday to press for swift passage of his proposed Department of Homeland Security, trying to erase doubts by the incoming Senate Republican leader that a "lame-duck" session can accomplish that. The president also made brief, last-minute calls - to Prime Ministers Jean Chretien of Canada and John Howard of Australia - lobbying for the U.N. Security Council vote on a compromise resolution insisting that Iraq disarm or face "serious consequences."
Anticipating the resolution's approval, the president prepared to make a statement in the Rose Garden emphasizing to Iraq that, as spokesman Scott McClellan said, "This resolution provides one final opportunity for Saddam Hussein and his regime to disarm." The Security Council passed the resolution unanimously.
Fresh from the newest warning to Saddam, Bush was sitting down to a working lunch with incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Bush planned to press his demand that the postelection congressional session beginning Tuesday approve the new homeland security department. The Democratic-run Senate had refused to embrace the proposal because of concerns over union protections for the new agency's workers.
"They got a few days to get some big things done, and the most important thing to get done, I want to emphasize, is to get a Department of Homeland Security finished," Bush told a news conference on Thursday. "It doesn't matter how long it takes, they need to get it done."
Lott had earlier said that he is "not an advocate of lame-duck sessions." He is eager to end the session within a few days. "I've never seen one that served the American people well, and I've been through a lot of them," Lott said.
The remarks irritated the White House, which is eager to prove it can govern in a bipartisan fashion following Tuesday's sweeping Republican gains. Bush was likely to give Lott an earful on the matter, a senior administration official said.
Lott said after Bush's remarks Thursday that if he has any power during the lame-duck, "it would be a big leap, but I'll make a huge effort to get it done." Lott doesn't take over as majority leader until the next Congress, in January.
Bush, holding his first formal news conference in four months, made clear he has two other priorities: passage of the 11 remaining spending bills; and approval of government-backed terrorism insurance for businesses, which the administration says will create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
He also renewed his call that lawmakers make key elements of last year's tax cuts permanent. They are scheduled to expire after 10 years.
Bush sidestepped questions about a new round of tax cuts. The administration is studying an economic package that would cut taxes on dividends and capital gains, increase the amount of stock-market losses that individuals can deduct from one year's taxable income and speed up increases in the amounts people can contribute to their 401(k) retirement accounts.
Bush steered clear of other specific plans once the GOP-led Senate clears the backlog left by Democrats. "There's going to be a huge laundry list of things people want to get done, and my job is to set priorities and get them done," he said.
He didn't address a question about whether he would press for legislation restricting abortions, as conservatives hope he will.
Nor did he say whether he would renominate conservative judges blocked by Democrats in the Senate, though he went out of his way to say those nominees would not have to be renominated during the lame-duck session. A senior administration official said the rejected nominees have been made aware of that situation.
Bush insisted that although Republicans will control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, he would not be beholden to conservatives.
"I don't take cues from anybody, I just do what I think is right," Bush said.
Bush took pains to give credit for the GOP's advances Tuesday to Republican candidates. He made no direct mention of the record-breaking $180 million campaign he and Vice President Dick Cheney quarterbacked in some 140 fund-raisers around the country this year.
"I think candidates win elections because they're good candidates, not because they may happen to have the president as a friend, or a foe for that matter," Bush said.
Bush did not repeat his assertion a day earlier that candidates won by "changing the tone" of their campaigns. The Democratic National Committee ridiculed the statement Thursday, calling many campaigns "the most vitriolic and personal in history," and citing a litany of examples of what it called below-the-belt GOP tactics.
Bush repeatedly expressed confidence that the U.S.-drafted resolution would pass the U.N. Security Council on Friday, though his aides were much more cautious.
"When this resolution passes, I will be able to say that the United Nations has recognized the threat and now we're going to work together to disarm" Saddam Hussein, Bush said.
AP-ES-11-08-02 1026EST
A new "massive Homeland Security Agency" can be much small then the sum of the current existing separate agencies, if it is done correctly. I think this is what Bush is trying to accomplish and that's why the Dems are fighting it.
A friend who is a 25-year employee of the Dept. of Transportation has given me status reports since he started there. Crappy permanent employees cannot be fired -- they are simply transferred to another branch to screw things up there. And after a person has been in a job long enough, they cannot have their pay reduced, even if they are demoted ten levels for incompetence. There are GS-7s earning $ 135,000 a year at DOT. A Teamster's wet dream. Just what we don't need in Homeland Security.
I totally and absolutely agree. There is no justification whatsoever for another federal agency.
Secure our borders, and deport illegals and terrorists.
That is absolutely correct. It is curious that politicians are clamouring for expanded powers when they don't enforce existing immigration laws, which themselves are HIGHLY lax.
For instance, a GAO investigation uncovered rampant immigration fraud, yet NOTHING has been done to correct the problem. Here's a link to the article..
Immigration fraud 'out of control' - General Accounting Office slams INS for rampant problems
Until we start utilizing our current resources correctly, there is no reason to think that a new federal agency will operate any differently..
And which agencies is Bush planning on shutting down? I highly doubt there are any plans for that...
Before she could finish the president said, Yeah, yeah. Then he rolled his eyes and said, (from memory) I don't take cues from anybody, I do what I think is right.
He isn't about to change the political philosophy that took him to the White House.
The dozens of agencies that will be merged will no longer need all the administrative, high paying, positions that now exist in those agencies. These positions will be the first to go (or be attritioned). Then other other redundant positions will follow. This same model can be applied to other related groups of agencies.
Think this one through. If you have - say ten agencies and combine them as-is into one - what do you get? A more massive bureaucracy? No, you get the same overall size that you had before. What do you get if you have a Republican president, combine agencies, and insist on non-unionized labor agreement? You get a conservative solution to a piece-meal, inefficient, ineffective bureaucracy. I think a massive consolidation of multiple organizations and eliminating the redundancies is conservative. That's why GWB is insisting on the non-union (i.e entitlement) situation.
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