Homeland Security Funding Gets One-Week Extension

WASHINGTON – Members of Congress this week will continue to discuss the issue of funding for the Department of Homeland Security after lawmakers on Friday approved a one-week extension at the eleventh hour.

According to The Buffalo News, the vote on Friday allowed some 1,800 government employees in Western New York to continue working this week, avoiding a furlough or work without pay.

The approval from both House and Senate came only after a day of Republican infighting on Capitol Hill, with those in the Senate unwilling to risk de-funding Homeland Security, while conservatives in the House argued for defunding the agency in order to prevent President Obama from enforcing his executive order freeing millions of undocumented aliens from the threat of deportation.

Democrats – who’ve been arguing for a long-term funding plan – made the decision Friday night to support the one-week funding measure, which then passed the House in a 357-60 vote.

Congressman Tom Reed (R-Corning), who represents Chautauqua County, voted to support the extension, although he did have some choice words for those across the aisle.  “Democrats in the Senate and now the House have instead chosen to hold the American people’s safety hostage for short-term political gain,” he was quoted as saying in the Buffalo News article. “It is shameful.”

Democrats, though, saw all the shame on the Republican side of the aisle, noting that a Republican-led House and a Republican-led Senate themselves failed to agree on Homeland Security funding.