20th Anniversary of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing

From Congressman Michael McCaul Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C. Twenty years ago today 12:17pm ET was the first attempt by Islamist Extremists to blow up the World Trade Center.  A truck bomb in the parking garage killed six people and injured more than one thousand.  Yesterday I met with New York City top counter-terrorism officials and visited Ground Zero to recognize the anniversary. Our mistake following that attack was our Intelligence Community did not connect the dots to a wider conspiracy to commit jihad against the United States.  Read: McCaul Op-Ed in Todays NY Daily News The lessons of the World Trade Center bombing Sequestration The Presidents sequestration plan goes into effect this Friday.  We must address the largest drivers of our out-of-control spending and that means reforming our entitlement programs in addition to reforming the tax code and lowering rates. The Presidents solution to our spending problem is more taxes coupled with sequestration which only targets discretionary accounts representing less than one third of overall federal spending. I discussed these issues yesterday on MSNBCs Morning Joe. Border SecurityLast week I toured the Arizona-Mexico border with Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) who chairs the Homeland Security Committee in the Senate.  Both of our respective committees have oversight jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security which is responsible for securing Americas borders and the fact he has designated border security as a top priority in his committee makes me optimistic that bipartisan political will exists to finally achieve this goal. Gaining operational control of our borders is not optional; it is a prerequisite to immigration reform and the only way to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.  DHS must implement a national strategy based on outcomes.  We cannot measure progress based solely on resources and arrests without knowing the number that cross our borders undetected.  I have developed guiding principles for legislation I plan to introduce to compel DHS to create and implement such a strategy.