Lieberman shocked to learn privatization going on at DHS

In today's episode of "Our Senators Are Useless Lumps" Lieberman and Collins hold a presser.

The Department of Homeland Security has more contractors working for it than full-time employees, a situation two members of Congress said Tuesday was "unacceptable, untenable and unsustainable."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and ranking Republican Susan Collins said they were "astounded" to learn there are more than 200,000 contractor employees at the department.

They just figured this out? Lieberman has been Chair of the Committee since 1/4/07 and the previous chair was -- yes you guessed it -- Susan Collins. Isn't it their job to keep track of what's going on at DHS? They didn't notice until now that the Bush administration was privatizing the agency? Guess Lieberman was too busy calling for hearings on the H1N1 vaccine and killing health care reform to notice sooner.

On the bright side, the Obama administration is already on the case. They have been "actively converting contractor positions to government positions and will continue to build on these efforts at an even more aggressive pace this year." So I guess the point of the presser is to demonstrate how incompetent Lierberman and Collins have been in fulfilling their responsibility to exercise oversight?

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