http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/01/politics/countering-domestic-terror-cuts/index.html
Tal reports:
“Washington (CNN)After a deadly terrorist attack in New York City, critics of President Donald Trump on Wednesday pointed to the millions in proposed cuts to counterterror programs sought by his administration, which reduced multiple such initiatives in its budget request.
The Trump administration has proposed sharp cuts to programs that seek to prevent domestic terrorism and prepare localities to respond — a point made by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, in response to Trump criticizing him on Wednesday morning, in a tweet linking the attack to an immigration policy Trump ascribed to Schumer.
“President Trump, instead of politicizing and dividing America, which he always seems to do at times of national tragedy, should be focusing on the real solution – anti-terrorism funding – which he proposed cutting in his most recent budget,” Schumer said in a statement. “I’m calling on the President to immediately rescind his proposed cuts to this vital anti-terrorism funding.”The Department of Homeland Security says, for its part, that it continues to improve the administration’s efforts on countering terrorism, and promises more effective measures to come.
Trump’s 2018 budget proposal included steep cuts to a number of grant programs run by the Department of Homeland Security that go toward terrorism and violent extremism preparedness and prevention. All told, more than $300 million would be cut from such programs.
New York itself would stand to lose millions in federal funds. On Tuesday, a 29-year-old Uzbek national killed eight people and injured more than a dozen more when he drove a rented truck onto a bike and pedestrian path in Manhattan, pledging his support to ISIS in a note found at the scene.
The administration has also folded two counterterror grant programs altogether, and is in the process of rebranding the Obama administration’s Countering Violent Extremism office.
A senior DHS official earlier this fall disputed the notion that the administration was retreating from fighting terrorism and domestic extremism, though, saying a new strategy is forthcoming.
“We really intend to elevate and amplify our terrorism prevention efforts in a big way, because the threat environment is serious, we’re taking it seriously and we’re doing a full end-to-end review of what we do on terrorism prevention to make sure that our efforts are effective,” the official told CNN. “We do not intend to focus our terrorism prevention efforts exclusively on one ideology. DHS is committed to combating both domestic terrorism and international terrorism and bolstering efforts for both.”
. . . .
In testimony before Congress earlier this year, acting Secretary Elaine Duke told lawmakers that administration is evaluating its approach to preventing terrorism going forward — and she and other officials have begun calling it “terrorism prevention” instead of “countering violent extremism.”
“Americans do not want us to simply stop violent plots, they want us to keep them from materializing in the first place,” Duke said in her prepared testimony. “As part of this effort, we have launched an end-to-end review of all DHS ‘countering violent extremism’ or CVE programs.”
Nevertheless, DHS officials have faced numerous questions from lawmakers about the proposed cuts to the programs and criticism from counterterror experts. The House-passed 2018 budget, which still needs to pass the Senate, largely increases or maintains the funding that Trump has proposed to cut.“
****************************
Read all of Tal’s article at the above link.
The DHS response sounds like “classic bureaucratic doublespeak” to me!
PWS
11-01-17