The Department of Homeland Security Reports that it has nothing to show for spending 1.3 Billion during the last five years to build a fence to keep out illegal aliens, the fence along our border with Mexico doesn’t exist and the money is gone.
Mark Borkowski, executive director of DHS’s Secure Border Initiative, told a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight that the department will likely scale back its plans to install sensors, cameras and radar towers along the Southwest border.
Borkowski’s admission came after withering testimony from Randolph Hite of the Government Accountability Office on the state of the virtual fence program, known as SBInet.
Hite said SBInet has been troubled since its outset and plagued by frequently changing milestones, management weaknesses and performance shortfalls. As a result, he said, the Department has little to show after spending most of the program’s $1.3 billion budget.
“In effect DHS is saying it will have to invest more than a billion dollars into SBInet before it will know whether doing so was economically justified or cost effect vis-à-vis other technology alternatives,” Hite said.
Apparently, management weakness is an excuse to waste or abscond with 1.3 Billion dollars, in private industry people would be fired and prosecuted; our government seems to think we should give them another billion dollars to see if they can manage the money more efficiently.
How convenient, Chris Carney, (D-PA) makes a show of reprimanding the DHS and then stresses the point that the fence may not be effective; reiterating the views of the Administration.
Subcommittee chairman Chris Carney, (D-Pa.) blasted DHS for the lack of progress and high cost of the program, which he called unacceptable.
“At our last hearing on SBInet in March I asked if we could get a refund and I believe the taxpayers would still like one,” Carney said.
“Now perhaps some good has come from this program, but not nearly enough to justify the funding and time that has been spent on this program, and I urge the department to continue to explore alternative means to secure the border in a timely and effective manner.”
All is forgiven, now get together and figure out a plan that does nothing and that costs less.
Hite said DHS couldn’t provide positive answers to basic questions such as “Are we doing the right thing?” and “Are we doing it the right way?”
“The answers right now are: ‘we don’t know’ and ‘no, we’re not’,” Hite said. “After having invested almost a billion dollars in five years, the answers should be ‘yes.'”
Borkowski agreed DHS has failed to deliver on the program’s original goals, which is why his office is focusing on completing two portions of the system along the Arizona border near Tucson and Ajo.
Once those two are complete, DHS will assess the viability and cost effectiveness of SBInet in comparison with other technology alternatives. Borkowski admitted it is unlikely SBInet technology will be deployed along the entire border.
Republican lawmakers complained that Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has already promised an assessment of the program but has yet to deliver.
In reality, this has merely been a method by the White House to keep from building the dreaded fence that might be effective in slowing the illegal alien invasion. This White House and the previous White House are not in favor of the fence nor in slowing the invasion. In the mean time, they will waste or steal all public money that is invested in the project to disillusion and dishearten the American the American people with their wastefulness and disregard of our tax money. Just as the DoJ promises not to prosecute illegal aliens from Arizona, the DHS is promising to waste all money scheduled for the fence. Our government is no longer representing the people, it has a private agenda that we are supposed to accept with blind faith, this is not exactly the way our Constitution laid it all out.
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As I said on another thread, we’re done for without citizen intervention, apparently. It will be interesting to see how the WH can spin Kyl’s claim that they are actively obstructing border enforcement. Kyl is about as unsensational as vanilla pudding. Yet it isn’t a surprise, it’s just the sick revelation that it really is true that the government is out to get you in this specific way, no more putting a nice face on it, it is war. I hope Brewer can call the Natl. Guard back from wherever and form a new border posse.
1.3 Billion didn’t disappear, just was tucked in nice little accounting errors. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was used to modernize tools to physicaly force conformity of the legal Citizens and Residences to “welcome” Immigration reforms. You just don’t lose that much money as a department and keep up a recuiting program and then tuck away new recruits away from the Southen border for “training” and security reasons on the Northern border.
@ Skook,
“. . . Napolitano has already promised an assessment of the program “ – This incongruous statement is rather typical of absurdity that daily flows from the Obama Administration, . . . “Napolitano” has proven to be incompetent, barely knew where Canada was on the map, “promised” is guaranteed to prove impossible when you have an incompetent making it while under the leadership of WobblyLegs, and “program” is a misnomer since it didn’t really exist.
This kind of vile ineptitude further reaffirms the public distrust of “Government Run” healthcare.
Twenty years ago we would have been appalled at the loss of a billion or so; now, with the was Obama throws around billions and trillions it seems like twenty dollar bills to the public.
We are becoming immune to vast sums and corruption of a massive scale, instead of being enraged people are content to sit back and say, “Oh, Well, what’s another billion?”
Let me tell you, it is still a lot of money to me; and it is gone either through theft and corruption or sheer incompetence. For whatever reason, if the Republican Party refuses to raise Holy Hell, we can’t help but wonder, how many hands are in the cookie jar?
Here’s one thing it did.
Having done business almost monthly in the Mexican border towns for a decade I noticed that ever since the left’s assault on the 2nd amendment, you know. “90% of the guns causing the violence in Mexico come from the US blah, blah..” Well, now I see something quiet often that I almost never saw before. We’ve diverted a fair number of our people at the border from searching cares coming into the US from Mexico. . . and tasked them with searching cars leaving the US for Mexico. Yes sir, we have reduced our security in the vain hope of finding talking points for the anti-gun left.
JR, the incompetence of the Obama Administration seems to be reminiscent of Esslin’s, Theater of the Absurd; but, I think he has been reaching far beyond the theater of the absurd and into the sublime in the hope of alluding his incompetence through sheer audacity. His irrational behavior defies a quantifiable description, thus the observer doubts his own frame of reference, simply because of the sheer ridiculousness of these situations. Therefore the philosophy of the absurd becomes a pervasive attitude rather than a concrete system and we, the everyday people, lack the cerebral capacity to grasp the concept of homo absurdus. The irrational cannot become ridiculous, even to us, because of the gravity we attach to our country and to the office, thus we observe the theater of the Absurd with the hope of making sense of that which is nonsense. Thus we are trapped in a metaphysical anguish looking for reason or logic to grasp out of desperation while we stumble on in a maelstrom of absurdity.
In the meantime, Janet checks her map to see once again where Canada is located.
$823 million spent on 55 miles of virtual fence that doesn’t work as advertised, with only $155 of that spent on actual deployment. The rest has been sucked up by the contractors–Boeing, primarily–for “design, development, supplier and program management and software design and development”.
Maybe the Obama administration should be having second thoughts about a program set up during the previous adminstration that’s so far costing 12 times the original estimate and isn’t producing reliable results. At $1.2 million per mile, we could probably have had a regularly patrolled low-tech physical fence that would actually stop people from crossing the border. Instead, we’ve been stuck with something else as a result of a successful marketing campaign by Boeing Co. lobbyists.
I don’t think reluctance to funnel more taxpayer dollars into a scheme of such dubious value is evidence that the Obama administration is soft on border security. $823 million would have bought a hell of a lot of stainless steel razor wire.
Absolutely right. The previous administration SHOULD have ordered the money spent on miles of razor wire. Unfortunately, my (admittedly vague) recollection is that the opposition felt the environmental impact of razor wire was too high, so we were forced into this “virtual fence” boondoggle. So I agree completely… The Obama administration should have second thoughts about this mess, and should fund razor wire instead. Anyone want to take odds on that?
@ Skook,
“. . . His irrational behavior defies a quantifiable description, thus the observer doubts his own frame of reference, simply because of the sheer ridiculousness of these situations.” . . . Yup, and the observer lays onto this Arid Canvas, its own fantasies.
How else can one explain the MSM’s lack of analysis and investigation. I know most of it does know much about economics or business, but surely there could me be more common sense demonstrated.
@JR: Yes, the missing element of a free society, the catalyst, our ‘frees press’ is acting as a propaganda bureau to add to the confusion. Without these little machines, there would be no hope; the Obamanation would be complete, complete and utter chaos.
I especially enjoyed the part of Senator Kyle’s account where he “kicks the rest of the people out” of the Oval Office, so that he and the President can have their private talk–part of which he is now purporting to reveal.
I bet they knew that from the beginning,and when GOVERNER BREWER made her new law, SHE must have disturb their plan,and she help put this in the open; because they show so much anger at her,it did not look right, it showed they had someting to hide, and here it is the billion has been spent,i am anxious to know of the side of BOEING story how much was spend and who ‘s got the rest, where, when, how, was it spent, the people should ask where their money went,
This doesn’t surprise me. Look how they handle Social Security. How many agencies have been investigated and they can’t show where the money went? This has been going on for many years.
Leave it to the Federal government to cost so much for doing so very little.
ilovebees, Brewer was Napolitano’s Secretary of State. They got along for about a month… Brewer has a lot of legislative experience too, so she knows the ropes. I think she, and a few others here, had the wit to see what was happening and also think of just the right bomb to toss. Wait until they reconvene and bring up the citizenship proposal (we will not recognize citizens only jus soli, they have to also have one American parent, natural or naturalized).
Bush was no help. Things got worse. Course, Nappy was our governor then. And she did complain and ask for help, so she’s turned to the dark side now when she was at least interested before.
PATTER: hi, I thought that when i read of the billion.3 gone; they are spending like there’s no tomorrow,so they must have reoriented that part on his favored expanses. they get all the money they ask for,and it disapear shortly after, bye 🙄 I am so glad the GOVERNER IS doing smart move by herself, i ‘m sure she have also a good team with her right on FOCUS.
We have met the enemy and they are us. Now that Kyle has informed the country on where Obama stands about the border, Arizona needs to put out a call to arms to her citizens and provide the security the feds won’t do. I also believe by refusing to protect this country’s borders, Obama has set himself up for impeachment. That is if anyone has the balls to charge him. We’ll see.
Minuteman: It seems to be self defeating, Hillary announces that the Feds are going to take Arizona to court for a law that the Feds wont enforce for political reasons. Then we have Obama using enforcement of the law as political leverage. It is like Rahm announcing that a crisis shouldn’t be wasted. It is as if they believe the public should be in on their intimate plans to manipulate the country, like the public is in on the corruption and larceny of the Chicago Machine. Is it just me lacking an Obama perspective or is this more chaos to keep us confused in the theater of the absurd.
In mathematics a “surd” is an entity that can’t be expressed in finite numbers or quantities, thus in this theater of the absurd, that is the Obama White House, logic is supposed to be obscure through an accepted prism of corruption, rather than being seen as ridiculous or irrational; although, irrationality could be interpreted as progress in their pervasive philosophy of reason and logic.
Skookum – We have to keep pushing back at these bastards. A friend sent me this quote from Winston Churchill the other day. ” If you will not fight for right when you can win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” One wonders, where are we now?
MINUTEMAN26: hi, WHO could be the one that would have the balls to do it; IS it member of
THE WHITE HOUSE, or a lawer, or anyone else?; OR why not a group of AMERICANS with the full knowledge of tricks of who on the defense side could use to win the case. IT has to be a sure win, or better wait for election. bye 🙄
Bees – Members of the US Congress don’t have the stiffest spines in the world. And they seldom do what is right for the country. For the most part a bunch of corrupt and gutless wonders. Impeachment charges start there. I won’t be holding my breath.
MINUTEMAN26: hi, I like CHURCHILL notation, very powerfull ,adaptable to all times; I hand copied it, thank you. bye 🙄
Minute Man, thanks for the Churchill quote. Wish we had a warrior statesman like him right now.
Infuriating..to say the least.
No accountability, zilch, zero, nada, no coverage in the msm that I’ve heard about, so it had to be very little if there was any.
If this was reversed, we all know danged good and well what would be happening to those involved, including where the buck would stop as well…the msm would be all over it like white on rice.
They do not want a fence built, anymore than they want the danged hole plugged.
Agenda matters…outcome for the leftists no matter the area or topic.
Heck, it’s just money, they’ll just print some more…eh?
Disgusting…all of them.