"Our budget works to reduce and eliminate the risk of attacks at our ports, rails, in the skies, our food supply and roads by allowing for increases in many of the programs and agencies to help protect these important areas of commerce and travel"
About this Quote
Ryun talks like an athlete turned lawmaker trying to translate a messy, bureaucratic reality into the clean logic of training: invest more, reduce risk, win. The sentence is a long relay race of nouns ports, rails, skies, food supply, roads each handoff widening the field of threat until “commerce and travel” feels like the whole country in motion. That breadth is the point. By naming everyday systems instead of abstract “homeland security,” he frames security spending as protection of normal life: getting to work, shipping goods, eating safely. It’s a pitch for buy-in, not just fear.
The specific intent is budgetary persuasion: increases in “programs and agencies” aren’t framed as government growth, but as pragmatic insurance. Notice the careful verbs: “reduce and eliminate the risk,” not “prevent attacks.” That hedges against the impossible promise of total safety while still sounding decisive. It’s a rhetorical sweet spot for post-9/11 politics, when the public expected action, and lawmakers needed language that justified new expenditures without admitting limits too plainly.
Subtext: if you oppose this budget, you’re implicitly willing to leave vulnerabilities open across the supply chain. The list functions like a moral map of responsibility, converting line items into patriotism. Coming from a famous runner, there’s also an appeal to credibility through discipline and protective teamwork: funding becomes the training plan, agencies the teammates, and “important areas” the course you don’t gamble with. The result is security talk engineered for mass consent: expansive, preventive, and hard to argue against without sounding reckless.
The specific intent is budgetary persuasion: increases in “programs and agencies” aren’t framed as government growth, but as pragmatic insurance. Notice the careful verbs: “reduce and eliminate the risk,” not “prevent attacks.” That hedges against the impossible promise of total safety while still sounding decisive. It’s a rhetorical sweet spot for post-9/11 politics, when the public expected action, and lawmakers needed language that justified new expenditures without admitting limits too plainly.
Subtext: if you oppose this budget, you’re implicitly willing to leave vulnerabilities open across the supply chain. The list functions like a moral map of responsibility, converting line items into patriotism. Coming from a famous runner, there’s also an appeal to credibility through discipline and protective teamwork: funding becomes the training plan, agencies the teammates, and “important areas” the course you don’t gamble with. The result is security talk engineered for mass consent: expansive, preventive, and hard to argue against without sounding reckless.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
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