Homeland Security
Despite the fact that you are hundreds of times more likely to be killed in a car wreck or even struck by lightning than killed by an act of terrorism, we keep increasing spending on homeland security far beyond any sensible levels.
We cannot make this country 100% safe even if we spent the entire federal budget on security.
Ian Lustick , a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, recently wrote about the War on Terror money feeding frenzy:
“Why, absent any evidence of a serious domestic terror threat, is the War on Terror so enormous, so all encompassing, and still expanding? The fundamental answer is that al Qaeda’s most important accomplishment was not to hijack our planes, but to hijack our political system. For a multitude of politicians, interest groups, professional associations, corporations, media organizations, universities, local and state governments and federal agency officials, the War on Terror is now a major profit center, a funding bonanza, and a set of slogans and sound bites to be inserted into budget, project, grant and contract proposals. For the country as a whole, however, it has become a maelstrom of waste…”
Professor Lustick pointed out that even Dunkin’ Donuts franchises had received $22,000,000 in federal counterterrorism loans.
The Air Marshal program is a prime example of government overreaction.
Before 9/11, this was a force with 33 agents. Now, it has more than 4,000 with a budget of around $800 million.
Some of its information is classified but really should not be. According to reporter Michael Grabell, 18 air marshals have been charged with felonies, and many more have been arrested for other minor crimes. One marshal killed a man who he mistakenly thought was a terrorist.
This is a useless, totally needless agency and a complete waste of taxpayer money. One former Member of Congress said we really did all we needed to do on aviation security when we secured the cockpit doors. This one inexpensive move took away the ability to use planes as they were used on 9/11.
Yet once a federal agency is created, it is almost impossible even to decrease funding, much less to do away with it altogether.
We could spend far less on homeland security and have a far safer nation if we would just adopt a more neutral, non-interventionist foreign policy all over the world, but especially in the Middle East.