Pete Sessions Cracks A Joke

From http://sessions.house.gov/
While Congress is in a District Work Period this month, I continue to focus on effective ways to improve our nation’s homeland security and economic security. As you may know, Congress has demanded that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) take action to secure our borders and implement interior enforcement of immigration law. As a result, I am pleased to report that the Administration has already made significant progress in improving border security.

I wonder how he defines ‘significant’. Will the next Texas summer have no tales of the discovery of tractor trailers full of illegal immigrants? Will spanish no longer be the native language of maids and landscapers in the Dallas area?

I doubt it. By significant, he probably means that he helped pour billions of dollars down drain to make security look better and prettier. In the mean time, millions of undocumented illegal workers stream back and forth across the border, by walking around these border enhancements. Pete and friends know that if they actually do anything of significance, they’ll increase costs to their campaign contributors. So he just wastes money for bragging rights.

And where do the billions come from, to pay billions for this fabled border security? Why he takes it from domestic programs that provide useful services.

Washington, Nov 3, 2005 - U.S. Congressman Pete Sessions (R-Dallas) today announced that he introduced the Reforming Amtrak’s Inefficient Lines Act (the RAIL Act, H.R. 4214), a bill designed to cut Amtrak’s operating costs by eliminating money-losing routes and services.

Of course Amtrak has some money losing services and lines. All businesses do.

Marketing for instance is a part of a business that does nothing but lose money. Businesses spend money on marketing so that they can increase sales. In aggregate, it’s worth having a marketing department and budget for this reason.

The US Government builds roads that will never return an economic profit, because in aggregate, road building is worthwhile. The US Post Office delivers mail to locations that can’t possibly pay their way, because it’s worth it overall, to deliver mail everywhere in the US.

2006 may well be the year after peak oil. We may well be sliding into a new world where saving money on energy, and increasing energy efficiencies will become our most important priority. This isn’t the time to waste money on pretend security measures while slashing programs that are going to come into increasing use, for decades to come.

Spending money to defend against the very people we buy our oil from, just seems like such a waste. Especially when so much this waste is spent in the service of bedwetting hysteria. Just because Bush is so frightened of the boogey man that's he's closed streets and installed concrete barriers all around the capital, doesn't mean we all need to go insane and start wetting ourselves. I live in a community full of undocumented workers that get in and out of the US just fine, even with many billions spent, to prevent them from coming. Pete Sessions likely has undocumented workers coming to clean his house and water his lawn, twice a week. Such hypocrisy does not become us.

Or maybe Pete is just being consistent. Maybe next he’ll next cut into roadway maintenance, and discontinue thousands of postal routes in order to free up money for boogey man protection plans? But I doubt it. I believe he'll continue to waste money repainting the facade while letting the house rot from within.