Politicians Threaten to Shutdown Government AGAIN If Taxpayers Don't Give Them More Money to Waste on Themselves and Their Cronies

Obama was hosting the governors at the White House on February 24, 2015, before the agency's $40 billion budget is set to run out, because of a dispute over the president's immigration executive orders. Most of the Department of Homeland Security's 230,000 employees would have to keep working after the Feb. 27 deadline, but would not receive pay until Congress authorizes funding. "They all work in your states," Obama told the governors. "These are folks who, if they don't have a paycheck, are not going to be able to spend that money in your states."

 

"What happens if DHS, the Department of Human Sacrifice, shuts down? American taxpayers save BILLIONS of wasted dollars and aren't one iota less safe than they were before. Homeland Security is a sick joke played on the public; it's our government's way of exercising more control over its own citizens, scaring people into believing they have to be 'protected'. Just like 911 was the catalyst for first emphasizing the 'need' for such 'security', this government boondoggle does more for terrorists than for citizens (terrorists now know that airports are 'secure', so their next target will be a football stadium, shopping mall or another skyscraper where 'security' is more lax. Hitler did the same thing in Nazi Germany: he told a lie, made it a big lie, and repeated the lie often enough until the citizenry believed him. Then he took control and destroyed the German economy, forcing a police state on citizens that did his bidding. We are only a few Presidents/Congressmen away from such 'big brother' control. All it will take is some crackpot to finagle his (or her) way into the Oval Office (or the Speaker of the House position) and America will fall into the same trap pre-World War II Germans did." - RKO

"The DHS shutting down would be a good thing. TSA does nothing, and the militarized police that the DHS is creating envisages the police as more of an unaccountable occupying force than a part of the community that '"protects and serves'."  - Gargle Fargle

"Given what we spend on that Department, we should have tight borders and illegal immigration should be a minor annoyance rather than the unmanageable crisis it has become. But that is not the case. What we do have is a big gang of politician appointees and career bureaucrats taking (cant say they earn them) big salaries and pensions, attempting to look busy and scream about the vital service they provide but actually ACHIEIVING nothing. That and many other agencies should be defunded, disbanded and begun over--either outsourced or under heavy scrutiny." - chic

FACT CHECK: What happens if Homeland Security shuts down?

February 9, 2015

AP - Spending for the Department of Homeland Security hangs in the balance as Congress fights over immigration matters in the agency's annual funding bill. Without action by Feb. 27, the department's budget will shut off.

To hear Democrats and many Republicans tell it, the result would be unacceptable risks to U.S. security at a time of grave threats worldwide. In reality, though, most people will see little change if the department's money flow is halted, and some of the warnings of doom are as exaggerated as they are striking.

"There are ghoulish, grim predators out there who would love to kill us or do us harm," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. "We should not be dillydallying and playing parliamentary pingpong with national security."

In the view of some House conservatives, though, shutting off the agency's $40 billion budget for a time "is obviously not the end of the world," as Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., put it, because many agency employees would stay at work through a shutdown.

Who's right, and what would the impact be if Congress were to let money for the department lapse?

Salmon and a few other conservatives are the only ones saying it publicly so far, but the reality is that a department shutdown would have a very limited impact on national security.

That's because most department employees fall into exempted categories of workers who stay on the job in a shutdown because they perform work considered necessary to protect human life and property. Even in a shutdown, most workers across agencies, including the Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Customs and Border Protection, would continue to report to work.

Airport security checkpoints would remain staffed, the Secret Service would continue to protect the president and other dignitaries, the Coast Guard would stay on patrol, immigration agents would still be on the job.

Indeed, of the agency's approximately 230,000 employees, some 200,000 of them would keep working even if Congress fails to fund their agency. It's a reality that was on display during the 16-day government-wide shutdown in the fall of 2013, when national parks and monuments closed but essential government functions kept running, albeit sometimes on reduced staff.

So what of the sometimes overheated rhetoric, often from Democrats trying to prove a political point?

"If this goes to shutdown," Mikulski said, "this could close down ports up and down the East Coast, because if you don't have a Coast Guard, you don't have the ports. You don't have the ports, you don't have an economy."

But if the department loses its money, the Coast Guard will stay in operation and so will the ports.

There would be one big change, though. Most workers would not get paid until the shutdown ends, a circumstance guaranteed to put pressure on members of Congress hearing from constituents angry about going without their paychecks.

Making employees come to work without pay is "a real challenge" for them, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

Workers at agencies funded by fees, instead of by congressional appropriations, would continue their functions while still drawing a paycheck.

It so happens that applies to the very employees charged with putting in place the immigration programs at the heart of the political dispute.

Fees pay the salaries of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services workers who would process applications from immigrants eligible to work lawfully in the country under President Barack Obama's immigration policies. Even though Republicans are so determined to shut down Obama's program that some are willing to risk Homeland Security money to do it, it would stay up and running with little impact in the event of a shutdown.

So who would stop working in a shutdown? Mostly administrative staff, including support workers at headquarters and personnel who do training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, employees involved in research and development, and those responsible for operating and maintaining the E-Verify system that allows businesses to check the immigration status of new hires.

In addition, all personnel involved in administering grants would be furloughed, including Federal Emergency Management Agency workers who make grants to state and local governments, fire departments, and others to help them prepare for or respond to various threats and emergencies. That has led to pleas to Congress from the mayors, among others, to keep Homeland Security Department funding going.

"In my opinion the biggest threat to this country and the people in it comes from our elected officials ! The incompetence ,the fraud and waste ,the appointed Czars ,the bloated bureaucracy of committees ,the ruling with a pen , the lies and continual taxation ,the constant nurturing of a dependent society . Government was never intended to be the way it is now that we have a pack of crooks thieves and liars representing the people of this country . You could take any kindergarten class from any school in the country and they could do a better job than this so called educated pompous turds in the punch bowl . As I said this is only my opinion ,I would think there may be others who feel the same way and wonder why we continue to get the same failed politicians in office year after year and they never get voted out . Look at both parties full of pathological liars who lie and cheat and steal and slander to get re-elected to continue the same downward spiral this country is on ,yet they continue to enrich themselves at the American taxpayers expense all the while pointing the finger at the other side and playing good cop bad cop with our lives and our freedoms." - Dennis

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The Department of Homeland Security is a total disaster. It's time to abolish it.