Security for Benghazi: Funding Was NOT the Issue

The last few weeks I have noted several pieces in the social media on Facebook, Twitter, some in the punditry on the left who are attempting to claim the reason security was not as it should have been in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 was due to “Republican budget cuts”. Those who promulgate this false narrative obviously do not comprehend how federal government spending is done.

First of all, the Republicans have a majority in only one half of the two branches of the federal system required, they can no more impose their will upon the country than could a pro-life president disallow legal abortions.  But that is another discussion for another day.  There are simply not enough Republicans, especially fiscal conservative Republicans, to get decreases in federal spending accomplished.

Second, there has not been a fiscal budget blueprint passed and enacted for several years now. This country has been operating via Continuing Resolution, the spending levels for the fiscal year; the legislation has been passed by a Republican-majority House, a Democratic-majority Senate and then enacted with the signature of a Democratic president.  All three must accept whatever blame/consequences occur due to those spending levels.

Third, there are no cuts, no minuses; each and every year spending on the various departments and programs of the federal government has increased. This is why the United States is closing in on $17 trillion as the National Debt figure, (it is closer to $90 trillion when you include all the unfunded liability for the country).  With all the protestations of “massive cuts” and “slash and burn”, curiously no one ever seems to notice the debt continues to increase every year.

Fourth, once money has been authorized and appropriated by Congress and sent on to the departments, “the checks cut” they have nothing more to do with it.  Each department will have its bean-counters work up their pay schedules, from pens, pencils, coffee and donuts in the office to the salaries of all those who work there, the accounting sheets will go through the different levels all the way up to the head of the department for signature, approval – in this case, the Secretary of State at the time, Hillary Clinton.

Finally, and most importantly, in her testimony to the House Government Operations committee last fall, State Dept. Deputy Assistant Director Charlene Lamb replied under oath to direct question that funding played no role in the security, or lack thereof, that night of the assault on the compound.

Funding for providing enough security in such a dangerous an area of the world was not at issue, so then why all the chatter to the contrary lately?  Methinks they doth protest too much.