The early weeks of any new Congress give those of us paying attention a sense of the types of activity we can expect for the next two years. So I was disappointed to see that one of the first pieces of legislation to move through the committee process in in the House of Representatives was the “Secure Our Borders First Act.” Rather than thoughtfully tackling a difficult issue, this bill appears to be a rehash of other failed attempts to “secure” the border by militarizing it at huge expense to the American taxpayer.

This isn’t a new idea. Border security packages have been used as a sugar pill to either help move other immigration-related policies or address concerns from vocal constituencies. In the last Congress, a $12 billion spoonful of “border security” provisions were added to help the Senate immigration reform legislation get passed. 

My organization, Taxpayers for Common Sense, wrote extensively about that procedural move. In our opinion, it was a cynical ploy by defense hawks to increase opportunities for defense contractors to sell their wares. This infographic shows how ludicrous some of the hardware requests are. I can make a political argument either way about whether border security should be legislatively married to immigration reform, but however Congress looks at border security, it needs to take a more thoughtful approach than simply throwing money at contractors and erecting fences.

In the end, the 113th Congress adjourned without either passing a border security bill or comprehensive immigration reform, and the laundry list of intelligence and surveillance equipment identified by the Senate bill seemingly died as well.

But not so fast. On Jan. 16, H.R. 399 was introduced and, in a land speed record for Congress, approved by the Homeland Security Committee on Jan. 21. And, yes, a new iteration of the laundry list of hardware survived. To quote the committee press release, “Our border must be dealt with through regular order and in a step-by-step approach – not through any type of comprehensive immigration reform. … This bill matches resources to needs, putting fencing where fencing is needed and technology where technology is needed.” While the H.R. 399 list of fencing and technology is not identical to the last one, it still looks just like another recycled version of a Department of Homeland Security wish list of hardware that was included in its “Report on the Assessment of the Secure Border Initiative-Network (SBInet) Program” five years ago.

After the speedy start for the bill, House leadership stopped short of making it among the very first to come up for a vote this week. That's good news. We need the 114th Congress to do things differently. I hope this delay in the voting on stale ideas about spending lavishly on a fence and other forms of border security marks a step in the direction of favoring serious problem solving over political posturing.