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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Congress Tells DHS how to Spend Budget

Try as it might, the Department of Homeland Security can’t get no respect on the floor of the House. In the parlance of Vietnam, it’s a “kill zone” for management.

Impatient with the agency’s decision process, lawmakers have grabbed power for themselves by earmarking 25 percent of new pre-disaster funds to speed along the grant process. But when the department dared this spring to beef up its management

budget, the House turned around and cut 32 percent from President Barack Obama’s request, leaving major administrative offices with fewer dollars than they got last year.

Senate Democrats hope to restore the money in their version of the same $42.6 billion bill, which will be taken up Tuesday. But DHS is the poster child for an increasingly common phenomenon for Congress: cutting agency management budgets and then bellyaching that government isn’t being effectively managed. - Politico Story

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