King likes to make a big deal that he is the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Other then him getting his name mentioned more often and being interviewed on TV more, King has been incredibly useless.
Today comes word that the Homeland Security department is CUTTING funds to New York by 40% in order to increase funds to Atlanta and Omaha.
NYC mayor Bloomberg says "When you stop a terrorist, they have a map of New York City in their pocket. They don't have a map of any of the other 46 places or 45 places [that get funding],"
King is upset too. I would be upset if as Homeland Security Chairman funding for Homeland Security is cut in my own backyard. King tells the NY Daily News "This is a knife in the back... As far as I'm concerned, the Department of Homeland Security has declared war on New York."
And where exactly is Kings "clout" to do more for the area?
Apparantly non-existant.
Now if funding is restored, King had best not try to take credit for it. It should have been up to King to make sure the cut never happend in the first place.
And if King thinks he can run his re-election on being Homeland Security Commitee Chairman, he can think again. Having a title but being powerless and completely useless for your area isn't something to run on.
King tells Associated Press "It's a knife in the back to New York and I'm going to do everything I can to make them very sorry they made this decision."
Maybe he should have tried to do everything he could to stop the cuts in the first place. It looks like "everything I can" isn't very much.
After being appointed Chairman of the Homeland Security Commitee, Powerless Peter said on WNBC "It has to be good for New York if I do my job because I strongly believe that all funding for homeland security has to be based on threat..... So to that extent, New York will be represented at the highest levels of the homeland security table."
Right after that, Congress voted to take back $125million from the 9/11 Relief Fund for New York. It took Senators Schumer and Clinton and other New York representatives to get the money back. Now we have anti-terrorism funding cut 40% by the Department of Homeland Security.
King appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris matthews thursday night to raise righteous indignation at the 40% cut. What we need to know is why King with a seat at the "highest levels of the homeland security table" didn't know about the cut beforehand.
MSNBC reported David Schuster tells us "The anti-terror grants to Washington, D.C., are being cut from $77.5 million to $46 million. New York City's grants are being cut from $207 million to $124 million. That's a 40 percent decrease. And the cut, as well as the Homeland Security Department's assertion that New York has no national landmarks, has left lawmakers infuriated.
"For months, the Department of Homeland Security has been warning that it was going to make changes. Officials vowed to force more regional cooperation, award the grant money based on risk and cut down on waste, like Segway motor scooters. Last year, police in Santa Ana, California, used part of their money to purchase four of them."
Did he say "months?"
Yes he did.
Where was the Chairman of the Homeland Security Commitee for months?
What does Chairman Powerless Peter know about what's going on?
"MATTHEWS: You're well placed, you're the chairman of the committee, Congressman -- who in the White House have you talked to today? Name the guys?
KING: No, I haven't spoken to anybody in the White House. I have sources within the Department of Homeland Security who told me that..."
All King has are "sources?"
That's not much for a Chairman to have or what he claimed he would have.
Matthews to his credit actually asks King about the congressional vote that cut Homeland Security funding...
"MATTHEWS: Let me turn the tables on you a little bit here.
Their defense over at homeland security is that you in Congress, because you have a budget squeeze that we're all facing in this country -- you could argue whose fault it is, but we got one with the deficits rolling up to about a half trillion dollars a year -- that you on the Hill cut $600 million from funding for these programs and that each -- that Homeland Security Department, they simply had to divvy it out; and you don't like the way they divvied out the cuts, but you were the guys that cut it overall.
Is that a fair shot at you?
KING: Chris, they're changing the story by the day.
The actual cuts were about 14 percent to 15 percent. Most of them were recommended by the president. So there's a 14 percent cut and they cut New York 40 percent. So it doesn't add up.
No, again, this is like their fifth explanation. None of them work. They're phonies."
What a quick diversion. Congress cuts $600million, DHS cuts funding to NYC and King tries to wiggle out of it with numbers.
King admits funding cuts but says that those cuts don't add up to what was cut from New York.
But the numbers just don't add up in Kings favor.
New York funding went from $207million last year to $124 million this year. That is $83million, well within the $600million cut.
Kings percentage BS is just that.
King is one of the phonies he complains about.
The long and short of it is that King as Chairman touts his clout but in the ned he doesn't seem to have any.
King opponent Dave Mejias went after King for his ties to Bush and Kings powerlessness when it comes to anti-terror funding.
Mejias says "Bush has declared war on New York, but Peter King, who has said he thanks God every day that Bush is in the White House, turns out to be one of his generals.
...he's (King) voted 'No' when it comes time to put our money where his mouth is."
"He's either ineffective, irrelevant, or just plain asleep at the switch,"
King responds "It's really sad that candidate Mejias is using a life and death issue for the state for petty partisan purposes when every New York member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, is standing together on this issue."
Really Peter? It's "sad" use Homeland Security issues "for petty partisan purposes?"
From Peter King himself as Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee "Let's not forget, a number of Democrats have consistently voted against providing proper funding for the War on Terror and provisions important to our homeland security, such as the REAL ID Act. Many even voted against the creation of a Department of Homeland Security in the first place," he concluded. "they think a little partisan grandstanding is going to make up for being soft on this issue, they are mistaken. I hope that in the future they can choose to put politics aside and work with us in a bipartisan manner to make certain our homeland remains secure."
While DHS is to blame for saying that NYC doesn't have any icons or monuments being one of the reasons for cutting 40% from NYC, it's not DHS that holds the purse strings.
As an example, funding for the State Homeland Security Grant (SHSG) program has been steadily decreasing over the past few years. The funding cuts were implemented by congress. Next year there is 550 million for the program, down from $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2005 and $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2006. That's a 50% cut.
The funding level for the 2006 Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security assistance programs is $2.6billion. The 2005 funding was $3.6billion.
Where was King on these cuts? As Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee what did he do to fight the huge cuts from DHS by congress?
King voted YES for the appropriations bill.
Place blame for the idiot explainations for the cuts squarely on the shoulders of DHS but blame must also fall on each and every member of congress who voted to cut appropriations.
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