Veronique de Rugy has a new paper out on homeland security spending. Since 2000, homeland security spending has increased from about $13 billion to over $65 billion. That means we're much more secure, right? Not so fast.
DHS directs only $35 billion of its $50.5 billion FY2009 budget toward homeland security-related activities. The remaining $15.5 billion finances non-home-land security activities, such as the Coast Guard’s rescues of foundering yachters and Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program.This allocation of money results from how legislators transferred powers to the newly created DHS Congress incorporated some items not related to homeland security into DHS, possibly because these programs would be less likely targets for cuts if they were part of DHS. Congress also left many homeland security items out of DHS’s jurisdic-
tion . . .Splitting the homeland security money between so many departments and programs decreases the ability of DHS and Congress to conduct effective oversight. Congress’s failure to consolidate oversight of the DHS into one committee might be the single greatest obstacle to creating an efficient and effective department. When Congress incorporated several agencies into DHS at its formation, committee chairs refused to relinquish their jurisdictions over the 22 agencies and activities transferred to DHS and have blocked attempts to reform the system by consolidating oversight powers into one committee.5
Not only is this failure to consolidate oversight inefficient and ineffective, but it is also extremely time consuming.
Last year alone the leaders of DHS:
appeared before 86 committees and subcommittees of Congress;
• participated in 206 Congressional hearings;
• attended 2,242 briefings for members of Congress;
• wrote 460 legislatively mandated reports;
• answered 2,630 questions for the record submitted by Congress members after hearings;
• responded to at least 6,500 letters from members; and
• provided 268 departmental witnesses for testimony.
Perhaps I am too jaded by excess air travel, but most of our homeland security seems designed to
A) Increase the power of congressmen and agency heads or
B) Put on a show for the yokels
rather than
C) Make us safer
Homeland security is the conservative version of the national healthcare plans I keep reading. Sure, in theory this new agency is going to make us all safer. But the plans all seem to rely on the interest group politics, bureaucratic dysfunction, and congressional power games that have produced the immense problems in our current system somehow magically disappearing. Instead, the thing gets more expensive, and less efficient. Perhaps the theory is that if they waste enough money, we won't have anything left worth destroying.
DHS, like DoD, is a welfare jobs program but with honor!
"Perhaps the theory is that if they waste enough money, we won't have anything left worth destroying."
This might work for National Security, but what is the plan for healthcare? If nobody can afford medical school tuition, then in 20 years we won't need to waste all this money on doctors?
I'm intrigued.
"most of our homeland security seems designed to
A) Increase the power of congressmen and agency heads or
B) Put on a show for the yokels
rather than
C) Make us safer"
Most??? The only things done after 9/11 that actually improved security were
a) re-enforced cockpit doors,
b) armed air marshals on some flights.
Everything else was show for the yokels -- with maximizing inconvenience being the method of choice to make sure the yokels notice the show.
The alternative to bad government is good government.
The problem with good government, from a blogger or journalist's perspective, is that the reforms which lead from bad government to good government tend to be nit-picky organizational and administrative shifts and the replacement of incompetent, politically oriented managers by competent, results-oriented managers -- none of which makes for exciting journalism. There are rarely big ideas involved, with the exception of the occasional interesting new strategem ("broken windows" policing, opt-out savings plans, etc.). And often it really can't be reported at all, because judgments as to who's a good manager and who's a scheming incompetent are so subjective that they're extremely difficult to substantiate in responsible journalistic formats.
Still, we've had some exceptions recently: TPM's reporting on the attorney-general firings comes to mind. And that's actually a very good case to keep in mind. The Department of Justice used to be a very competent, professional organization with high standards of impartiality, staffed by smart, effective civil servants who enjoyed public service. It's been wrecked by political hacks. But it would be absurd to suggest that we shouldn't even try to have a Department of Justice, because it will inevitably be subject to the same "interest group politics, bureaucratic dysfunction, and congressional power games that have produced the immense problems in our current system." What we need is to restore the professionalism of the DOJ; there's really no alternative. I don't know enough to say whether it would be more efficient to break up DHS or to reform it and make it effective. But agency after agency in the USG has been corrupted by Rovian Bolshevist tactics over the past 8 years: expertise has been subordinated to political loyalty, with grim results, at DOD, State, CIA, FEMA, EPA, Treasury, and on and on. This isn't evidence of the futility of government, any more than the ENRON crash is evidence of the futility of private enterprise. It's evidence of the futility of bad government, and the need for good government.
Brooksfoe,
All the departments you listed are in dire need of repair, but that is mostly unrelated to the structural issues plaguing DHS. When official authority and actual access to funding diverge, oversight becomes impossible. And because no one with the power to change the system is willing to give up what little control they have, good governance reformers lack the leverage necessary to make changes. More professionalism would be helpful, but the trouble with DHS cannot be repaired by mere introduciton of new personel.
brooksfoe:
The alternative to horses is unicorns.
The problem with unicorns, from a journalist perspective, is that the growing of horns is quite boring. More importantly, unicorns don't exist.
In every case where the government competes with private industry such as FedEx vs. USPS, private industry so overwhelms government in competence that other government agencies use private industry.
When the federal government really, truly needs something to get somewhere, the call FedEx.
That's why the TSA is worse at securing a perimeter than minimum-wage illegals in Wal*Mart loss prevention. That's why I can get a centuries-old book in Swahili from Amazon faster than I can get a passport renewed.
For inherent systemic reasons, government agencies do not root out incompetence.
Want to prove me wrong?
Find me a government agency that transports and distributes food with less spoilage and loss than Wal*Mart.
You'd have a better chance finding a unicorn.
I still think that the active element in Homeland Security is the threat of massive retaliation - a threat managed by the DoD. DHS is a clumsy attempt at prevention. The problem of managing individual access to the US is beyond the capabilities of our government as presently structured. I think most of us prefer it that way. Consolidating these efforts under a single congressional committee makes my blood run cold. Given the ingenuity of the hostile communities, it seems unlikely that one body of people from similar backgrounds are going to be able forestall any attack without requiring the rest of the population to behave in predictable, directed fashion. While deviation might stand out, the cure is certainly worse than the disease.
Devils Advocate:
If we didn't have a high level of security we would have all sorts of disaffected people bringing weapons and explosives on board. The relative paucity of attacks shows that this security is working.
Now, it may not be efficient. ie, we could get the same level of security possibly for 30% of the price. But it has a positive effect, otherwise we would have had many more Lockerbie type attacks.
Not to say that it seems right to have a guard spend an hour screening a 90 year old woman in a wheelchair...
Should Megan wish to move beyond the quip level, she might consider another DHS function: to enable crooked companies to have a workforce (legal or illegal) while looking like they're trying to enforce our laws. She might look into MichaelChertoff's advocacy for various programs and the implicit threats he's made that without those programs he won't do his job. She might look into the recent cratering of the "VirtualFence". She might look into things like this recent example of keeping us safe. I just don't think there's any chance of her doing that.
The goal of every government agency is to maximize its budget. Being effective at its stated reason de e'tre is almost never the best way to do this. That is why government fails.
Perhaps I am too jaded by excess air travel, but most of our homeland security seems designed to
A) Increase the power of congressmen and agency heads or
B) Put on a show for the yokels
And this is different from anything else the government does how?
If I remember right the conservatives did not originally want the government to run this program. I think this was forced on us by the Dems.
I also remember that it was the Dems that ran the Viet Nam war which ended so badly. Perhaps there is a pattern here.
TSA: Thousands, Standing Around.
This is why W initially opposed creating the Dept. of Homeland Security. It's too bad he caved to the arguments of people like Hillary Clinton.
The alternative to bad government is good government.
There is no such thing as "good government". Such a thing exists only in the fertile imaginations of liberals.
By the way, I'm also enamored of the emerging mythology that the "Rovian Bolshevist tactics" of the last eight years is singlehandedly responsible for corruption and incompetence of government; the implication being that everything was sunshine and roses prior to January, 2001. This revelation is no doubt fascinating to, for example, the victims of the Clinton-era BATF.
Memo to brooksfoe: corruption and incompetence in government has existed as long as there has been government, regardless of which group of liars and thieves had its grubby paws on the levers of power. Your preferred group of liars and thieves is no more virtuous than any other.
An interesting question is whether the professionalization of the civil service was a good long-term idea or not. Without a proper civil service, government employees are of course political hacks, but they're at least political hacks who are answerable to politicians who are answerable to voters...
OTOH, the federal government has probably now grown beyond the point where rapidly cycling is no longer possible.
The remaining $15.5 billion finances non-home-land security activities, such as the Coast Guards rescues of foundering yachters and Federal Emergency Management Agencys Emergency Food and Shelter Program.
I volunteer with the Coast Guard Auxiliary, and can tell you that the Coast Guard now devotes considerable effort to port security. I'd argue that if anything there's too much attention paid to terrorism and I'd rather see the balance shift back to marine safety. (As it happens, "yachters" who aren't in imminent danger are told to pull out a credit card and call SeaTow. The CG's real rescue efforts go towards shipping and fishing vessels.)
In general, I don't get the sneering tone of that part. FEMA's supplies of emergency food and clothing aren't making us safer because they aren't (primarily) aimed at terrorism?
The part about impressing the yokels I completely agree with.
Then there is the psychological political reality that the "terrorists" have won - I mean look at how they have changed our behavior and our reasoning. I don't travel as much as I used to when I was a proverbial "road warrior- international style" but I can tell you that when I do I am humbled and ashamed that in order to do so, I must drink my Evian before I reach the TSA gauntlet, that I have to remove my shoes, my belt, my cap, my jacket, my watch, my wallet, my keys, my phone, my laptop, my coins, my pens, my uzi . You get the picture. That in order to save a dozen hours or more, you must do a self strip search as if you are the criminal and yet it makes no sense. Profiling and risk analysis would all be better ways to assure safety but we have opted for Big Government and Incompetent Overreaction.
On what planet was the Homeland Security a conservative plan?
After 9/11 the Democrats successfully won the debate, arguing in favor of the Department's creation. Bush and the Republicans were against it from the start, but sensing the changed wind, Bush relented and in a Clintonian move, tried to co-opt the issue.
If my memory serves, the 3 conservative marks on DHS* are 1) Non unionized labor, 2) Giving visa background checks to DHS instead of State, and 3) decoupling border and customs enforcement from other immigration services. The last created ICE from INS, the latter of which was criticized for emphasizing immigration over enforcement because of its conflicting mandate.
And while ICE hasn't exactly been as robust as some hoped, none of the 3 conservative DHS implementations are unsuccessful.
Unimplemented conservative proposals include a robust private-run airport security and a new counter terrorism agency which has a mandate both foreign and domestic.
(*A national tamper-proof I.D. card was a bi-partisan idea that is both supported and loathed by members of both parties.)
An Israeli security official is supposed to have said that we don't have a security system; we have a system for annoying people.
Homeland security is the conservative version of the national healthcare plans I keep reading.
Wrong. It's the liberal version of Homeland Security.
Actually it was Democrats who pushed The Homeland Security Department and then Bush "made it his own," one of his many caves. He signed on to "Campaign Finance Reform" too, but that don't make it conservative.
Most conservatives opposed the idea of the Homeland Security Department and they certainly wanted to keep passenger screening in private hands (the 9/l1 hijackers used permitted items). It was the Democrats who wanted more unionized government workers, not conservatives.
"The alternative to bad government is good government."
No, the alternative is small, limited government. Good government is always ephemeral. A safety net can become a capture net in the blink of an eye. Power corrupts, but it also attracts people who are already corrupt.
The only sure defense is to limit government to those functions that it alone can do and enforce this limitation. The difficulty is that when people are allowed to vote, they will vote in their own perceived interests, which are usually contrary to their true long-term interests. The examples of Athens and Rome should be instructive.
We already had homeland security agencies in the military, FBI and CIA, but they had become so overlawyered, and competitive that they failed their missions to prevent terrorism. We also had an administration distracted by Clinton's scandals and one which didn't really believe in using unilateral force to deal with our enemies. We ended up rearranging the deck chairs while adding more people to the federal bureaucracy and the unions of federal employees.
When official authority and actual access to funding diverge, oversight becomes impossible. -- heedless
This is the only useful point I've seen made on this thread. I don't believe there's ever been an effective "czar" in the US government, because the "czars" generally don't control funding. If you don't control money no one listens to you. Similar problems arise with every "coordinating" agency (UNAIDS, etc.). It does seem logical to say that we should either put DHS in charge of the funds of the agencies its oversees, or eliminate it.
"Government is bad" is really not a useful thing to say when talking about the problems of a government agency.
The conservative version of homeland security is to issue all the passengers snubnose single shot beanbag guns, with an 8lb trigger (to keep the kids from firing them). Lets see someone start something then. They could just go in the pouch in the back of the seats with the airsickness bags. Unfortunately you'd have to RFID them to keep people from trying to take them home. I'd love to have one for the dinner table.
Megan, you're in the right ballpark but you miss the most important points.
Our government simply does not have the balls to implement actual, REAL, effective airport security such as the Isrealis have. Their system is well known, fast, efficient, and it WORKS. But it is not PC.
So instead they take the cowardly way out and hope people confuse "inconvenience" with "effectiveness", and have our craptacular TSA.
Mike Earl makes a very important point--namely, that most of what the government does is no longer done by people who were elected. Neither were they hired by someone who was elected. Their boss's boss's boss's boss's boss is...appointed by someone who was elected. They could screw up so fundamentally as to cost the public millions of dollars every year, and the worst they get is a strong admonishment to do better next time.