Sequestration Cuts & ICE

[pcfixer]

About $85 billion in cross-government cuts are scheduled to go into effect on Friday. Approximately 5.3 percent of the ICE budget would be cut.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/oba...2/26/id/492172

Customs and Border Protection has proposed slashing $754 million from its budget to comply with automatic budget cuts. Congress has until Friday to come up with a plan to reduce the deficit or the cuts take effect.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE has released hundreds of illegal immigrants from detention to save money as sequestration looms.

http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news/193589751.html

[BryanK]

While not directly related to ICE, here is a cut that I learned of recently that really pisses me off:

$685 million cut from federal wildlife public land funds

When you start withholding funds that are supposed to be utilized by the states for land management and other related tasks, your now endangering these lands to be more susceptible to being destroyed.

[Pete]

What was ICE's budget this year and what will be it's budget be next year - in dollars please?

[Oldrotorhead]

Originally Posted by BryanK

While not directly related to ICE, here is a cut that I learned of recently that really pisses me off:

$685 million cut from federal wildlife public land funds

When you start withholding funds that are supposed to be utilized by the states for land management and other related tasks, your now endangering these lands to be more susceptible to being destroyed.

I would rather States fund and manage the State's resources without the Federal Government being involved.. The same with education, and "First Responders" If an individual State needs funds those funds should come from the State residents and if it is mismanaged tough.

If I rememger correctly the Feds killed the only known wild Jaguar in the US with their inept attempt to "study" the animal.

[BryanK]

Originally Posted by Oldrotorhead

I would rather States fund and manage the State's resources without the Federal Government being involved.. The same with education, and "First Responders" If an individual State needs funds those funds should come from the State residents and if it is mismanaged tough.

If I rememger correctly the Feds killed the only known wild Jaguar in the US with their inept attempt to "study" the animal.

I feel the same way, however until the Pittman-Robertson Act is abolished it looks like Uncle Sugar will keep his sticky fingers in the bowl. I'd love to see our parks, forests, and wildlife management entirely left to the individual States. That way the pool of people held accountable would be more shallow and easier to navigate. Not to mention those tax monies taken from fishing, hunting, firearm, ammunition, and boating equipment sales going to the States directly instead of the fed's.

[pcfixer]

Originally Posted by Pete

What was ICE's budget this year and what will be it's budget be next year - in dollars please?

Answer to your question:

http://www.ice.gov/news/library/fact...get-fy2012.htm

Fact Sheet: ICE Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 Enacted Budget

Total ICE Enacted Budget $5.82 billion


http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/...print&page=all
This says reduction of ICE budget in 2013 DHS budget...

http://www.fiercehomelandsecurity.co...ms-enforcement

The above website may or may not be accurate. Shows a reduction of 5.57%
can't give a dollar figure as this site confuses me.

The whole issue and problem is about NO federal budget in last 4 years. So who's lying?

[Pete]

Originally Posted by pcfixer

Answer to your question:......The whole issue and problem is about NO federal budget in last 4 years. So who's lying?

The two linked sites list DHS & ICE requested budgets - nothing about Sequestration forced cuts.

It's interesting that at the second link it explains the drop in requested funds to a program to train local cops to round up illegals is curtailed.

So the bottom line still remains - is Sequestration really cutting anything?

[pcfixer]

Originally Posted by Pete

The two linked sites list DHS & ICE requested budgets - nothing about Sequestration forced cuts.

It's interesting that at the second link it explains the drop in requested funds to a program to train local cops to round up illegals is curtailed.

So the bottom line still remains - is Sequestration really cutting anything?

I think the same, Pete. So tell me, Is Sequestration cuts just for the Defense Dept or across the board? Not very clear to me.

[BOfH]

MOO: It's less about cuts and more about how much was spent and now needs to be paid for. For some government organizations and agencies, sequester is basically: your budget is the same this year as it was last year. The problem is that many of these same agencies and organizations have already spent forward whatever increase they might have gotten through baseline budgeting, and now the bill is due. So they end up with last years budget number which they went over then, but planned on accruing the overage against this years number, and now with the sequester, they get the same number as last year, plus the debt they now need to pay for. So in the spirit of fiscal irresponsibility and attrition, it's "Give us the money or else the poor LEO/welfare program/ATC/fireman etc. is gonna get it".

In summary: Its like spending a raise you haven't gotten yet, with the expectation that you are going to get it, and then not getting it, and crying foul because you already spent it; and furthermore threatening to slack off because now you have to make some spending habit changes.

My .02

[mark46th]

"I'd love to see our parks, forests, and wildlife management entirely left to the individual States." BryanK

If you lived in California, you would not want that.

[Stargazer]

From my vantage point, it's nothing more than a bunch of wrangling. The sequestration was the big compromise they all were willing to go along with to prevent the big financial disaster of the moment. This President and his Administration were a part of that process. To act like he has no culpability, is a bunch of manure. It's reminds me of kids squabbling over who started it -- at some point it doesn't matter who started it -- it needs to END.

I have heard it said that the President may have flexibility through the agency heads to control where the reductions hit. Although, the Administration has a differing view.

While the folks on the hill are playing chicken -- the very people they are sworn to represent will pay the price. IMO, this Administration's demagoguery, along with allowing cuts in areas that have a direct impact to our national security is a contravention of his oath.

[MR2]

It is comforting to know that we will have to close down flight control towers, lay off teachers, firemen, and airport security.

It is comforting to know that our President, Democrat legislators, and the liberal-dominant mainstream media fought so valiantly and courageously to save Big Bird, the abortion mill Planned Parenthood, profane art, subsidized solar panels and wind turbines, subsidized milk, grain, and wool products from any future cuts and that one out of six Americans will still have free minutes on their Obama phones so they can order home delivery of junk food paid for with their food assistance cards.

So we have to give up security, fireman, and teachers – it is a small price to pay for those essential services we have been able to preserve...

[Stargazer]

Charles Krauthammer opinion, once again, resonates with my own thoughts regarding the circumstances.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...2df_story.html

Because of this year’s payroll tax increase, millions of American workers have had to tighten their belts by precisely 2 percent. They found a way. Washington, spending $3.8 trillion, cannot? If so, we might as well declare bankruptcy now and save the attorneys’ fees.

The problem with sequestration, of course, is that the cuts are across the board and do not allow money to move between accounts. It’s dumb because it doesn’t discriminate.

Fine. Then change the law. That’s why we have a Congress. Discriminate. Prioritize. That’s why we have budgets. Except that the Democratic Senate hasn’t passed one in four years. And the White House, which proposed the sequester in the first place, had 18 months to establish rational priorities among accounts — and did nothing.

When the GOP House passed an alternative that cut where the real money is — entitlement spending — President Obama threatened a veto. Meaning, he would have insisted that the sequester go into effect — the very same sequester he now tells us will bring on Armageddon.

Good grief. The entire sequester would have reduced last year’s deficit from $1.33 trillion to $1.24 trillion. A fraction of a fraction. Nonetheless, insists Obama, such a cut is intolerable. It has to be “balanced” — i.e., largely replaced — by yet more taxes.

Which demonstrates that, for Obama, this is not about deficit reduction, which interests him not at all. The purpose is purely political: to complete his Election Day victory by breaking the Republican opposition.

At the fiscal cliff, Obama broke — and split — the Republicans on taxes. With the sequester, he intends to break them on spending. Make the cuts as painful as possible, and watch the Republicans come crawling for a “balanced” (i.e., tax-hiking) deal.

In the past two years, House Republicans stopped cold Obama’s left-liberal agenda. Break them now, and the road is open to resume enactment of the expansive, entitlement-state liberalism that Obama proclaimed in his second inaugural address.

But he cannot win if “nothing bad really happens.” Indeed, he’d look both foolish and cynical for having cried wolf.

Obama’s incentive to deliberately make the most painful and socially disruptive cuts possible (say, oh, releasing illegal immigrants from prison) is enormous. And alarming.

Hail Armageddon.

[Aknazer]

Originally Posted by mark46th

"I'd love to see our parks, forests, and wildlife management entirely left to the individual States." BryanK

If you lived in California, you would not want that.

Why would I want my tax money going to pay for another state's parks, forests, and wildlife? Just because your state (and potentially my state, though I'm being told that my orders to CA are likely to be put on hold because of the cuts) can't manage their finances doesn't mean that other states should pay for their ineptitude imo.

[Oldrotorhead]

Originally Posted by BryanK

I feel the same way, however until the Pittman-Robertson Act is abolished it looks like Uncle Sugar will keep his sticky fingers in the bowl. I'd love to see our parks, forests, and wildlife management entirely left to the individual States. That way the pool of people held accountable would be more shallow and easier to navigate. Not to mention those tax monies taken from fishing, hunting, firearm, ammunition, and boating equipment sales going to the States directly instead of the fed's.

Paace Brother. The States need to start standing up to the Feds in a lot of area. A lot of money is skimmed off at the Federal level with no benefit. The DOE serves no useful purpose the EPA would do well in Germany... in 1939 maybe. Tere are a lot of other examples.