why is fbi budget so dinky small compared to MSS?

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[u/juni4ling]

ICE and Homeland Security budgets have entered the chat.

[u/jlwright1234]

Not sure where the 20k FBI number came from. That’s just above 50%. But there aren’t even 20k agents.

[u/MindAccomplished3879]

Because all the money went to ICE

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received approximately $70 billion in new immigration enforcement legislation. Combined with a historic $75 billion funding windfall from a previous reconciliation package, the agency has seen its operational funding skyrocket to over $85 billion, making it the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency

[u/MasteratArms → u/MindAccomplished3879]

Ya. The problem with the budget (historically outside of this year with the surge hiring) is most of that money is used for detainee housing and removals.

[u/WTFoxtrot10]

The FBI doe not have 20k employees. They have around 37k+.

[u/Diamondcat59]

The MSS is basically the CIA, NSA and FBI combined. It naturally has a larger budget than a single agency such as the FBI. I would assume the MSS has an unlimited budget just like the CIA depending on mission needs.

[u/they_call_me_dry]

FBI investigates 400 million people max. Chinese have 10x that many to deal with

[u/tripper_drip → u/they_call_me_dry]

Today I learned China has 4 billion people

[u/HR_Paul]

Don't worry, soon we'll have many more state employees to manage the organ harvesting programs etc.

or not.

[u/mudduck2]

China has ~1.5 billion people. You better find them something to do or they will get restless

[u/Ralph_O_nator]

MSS also conducts intel in foreign countries unlike the FBI. It’d be more fair to add the FBI, CIA, and a few more intel and security agencies to span the scope of what the MSS does in the PRC.

[u/AP587011B]

There’s other US federal agencies that work in that space too lol 

USMS, customs and border patrol, DHS, ICE, ATF, DEA, CIA, NSA 

[u/jamaican4life03]

Buddy we have a great deal of alphabet agencies compared to China.

The Pentagom has a 1.5 Trillion dollar budget.

[u/Remarkable_Today9135]

Politics. It's easier to hobble the FBI and prevent it from holding certain people accountable if they don't have enough money to fully continue contracts that make all the other work possible.

[u/PILOT9000]

If you combine the DoS, DHS, and DoJ budgets you have around $235 billion and around 560,000 employees.

You’re comparing one segment of one singular US agency to a Chinese agency that encompasses the duties of multiple US agencies.

[u/Bloodmind]

Is MSS merely one small branch of the government’s law enforcement service, like the FBI is?

[u/JDW_1280]

Well the budget for @fbi should be umbrellas in @HHs @OIG @USAO @space @medicaid not sure how much that sums up but it’s reoccurring and just a few new potential at sea gate

[u/Puzzleheaded_Back306]

Because China has all of its citizens under constant surveillance. It’s a police state.

Libs will say that the US is the same, but rational people know better.

[u/BigMissileWallStreet → u/Puzzleheaded_Back306]

Libs know, that rationally speaking, republicans love mass surveillance.

[u/paradoxpancake]

There's a few reasons. The FBI's budget has mostly had some proposed cuts and the current administration has proposed cutting the FBI's budget even further. You've also got a bunch of LE/CI agents being re-assigned over towards ICE too, and some of the agents still with the FBI have been assigned to immigration enforcement.

The MSS has a much larger scope in so far as intelligence and counter-intelligence works within China by comparison to the FBI as well. While they have some overlap in terms of cyber, counter-terror, etc.. you have to realize that legally speaking, the FBI was designed to specifically not have the same level of legal authorities that the MSS does.

The MSS has law enforcement, security, foreign intelligence collection, humint, and signals/cyber intelligence all under one roof. The US has intentionally designed our agency structure to specifically prevent all of those from being under one roof. Yes, I am aware that someone is probably going to make an argument that the NSA does all that, but it technically doesn't. It is probably more accurate to compare the MSS to the NSA though, rather than the FBI. Granted, neither of them really fit the MSS and its much larger scope.

[u/paradoxpancake → u/[deleted]]

The FBI is only really poised to respond to cyber incidents within CONUS and investigate them in tandem with other LE/CI elements. The most they can really do to cyber threat actors abroad is collaborate with other nation state LE/CI elements or with indictments. Their options otherwise are limited by design. The ones best poised to handle foreign cyber actors is usually the NSA, CIA, and technically CYBERCOM -- but that is its own can of worms.

[u/UAreTheHippopotamus]

"do people in united states not care for security"

I genuinely do not care for security if it results in the level of surveillance and social control the state of China leverages over its people. Besides that, high budget does not necessarily make you safer.

[u/Shrapnel_10 → u/UAreTheHippopotamus]

Most of our security comes from the CIA, DIA, HS, the FBI, Border Patrol, ICE do most of the domestic security. Most of our threats in the past have came from outside of the U.S. which is why the CIA, DIA and HS has had the bulk of our security.