Richard K. Armey: “Mr. Chairman, we need to move forward, and we need to move forward to provide the President with the tools that he needs…”

“Mr. Chairman, we need to move forward, and we need to move forward to provide the President with the tools that he needs to secure our homeland. Our current structure simply cannot meet the demands of an age in which the primary threats to the United States have shifted. New threats have surfaced. We face asymmetrical warfare from rogue regimes. We face grave danger from terrorist organizations plotting to use weapons of mass destruction. America needs an overhauled, comprehensive agency that is engineered to combat the dangers that are unique to our time. We need to move beyond our current dysfunctional organization of domestic security responsibility. We need to apply ingenuity and experience to craft a combined agency whose employees will arrive at work each morning with a single defining mission: protecting the people, resources, and institutions of the United States. To be organized effectively and function efficiently, the Homeland Security Department must be consolidated. It has to be flexible, and its employees must be readily accountable to its Secretary.”