Step Away from the Bills!

Every time he signs one, the country hemorrhages money, or we look even worse. Sometimes both.

Bush Signs Homeland Security Bill

That would be the "Homeland Security Bill" that paints us all as racist xenophobes. Just so you know.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - President Bush on Wednesday signed a homeland security bill that includes an overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and $1.2 billion for fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration.

Standing before a mountainous backdrop in Arizona, a state that has been the center of much debate over secure borders, Bush signed into law a $35 billion homeland security spending bill that could bring hundreds of miles of fencing to the busiest illegal entry point on the U.S.-Mexican border.

[...]

"It's what the people in this country want," Bush said. "They want to know that we are modernizing the border so we can better secure the border."

Funny, it's not what I want. And how exactly is simply throwing up a few hundred miles of fence "modernizing" the border?

And, once again, all together... what about the other borders?

Outgoing Mexican President Vicente Fox, who has spent his six-year term lobbying for a new guest worker program and an amnesty for the millions of Mexicans working illegally in the United States, has called the barrier "shameful." He compares it to the Berlin Wall.

Some Democrats criticized the homeland security spending bill as too meager.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the homeland security spending bill does not improve screening of cargo carried on passenger planes, does not provide money to buy and install advanced explosive-detection equipment and does not include strong enough security requirements to protect against a terrorist attack on chemical plants.

Yeah, but at least we're keeping those Mexicans out, and keeping them from stealing our jobs.

(Stop me before I cross-post again!)