Homeland $ecurity More About Money
Congressman Duncan delivered the following remarks on the floor of the House on 2-16-12:
Madam Speaker, I rise to talk for a few minutes about security. I know that almost no Member is willing to vote against something that has the word "security" attached to it, but I wish that most Members would consider these words from Ian Lustick. Professor Lustick is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and he wrote several years after 9/11 about the war on terror money feeding frenzy. He wrote this:
"After September 11, 2001, what accounts for the vast discrepancy between the terrorist threat facing America and the scale of our response? 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 been a maelstrom of waste."
He pointed out an example that even Dunkin' Donuts franchises had received $22 million in Federal counterterrorism loans.
Madam Speaker, in addition to that, shortly after 9/11, when every government, department, and agency was requesting more money for security, The Wall Street Journal carried an editorial that said:
"Any bill with the word "security" in it should get double the public scrutiny and maybe four times the normal wait, lest all kinds of bad legislation become law under the phony guise of fighting terrorism."
Unfortunately, we haven't followed the guidance of Professor Lustick or The Wall Street Journal. I thought of these writings by Mr. Lustick and The Wall Street Journal when I read two recent articles.
On December 20, 2 months ago, Vanity Fair magazine carried an article on its Web site which said:
"As you stand in endless lines this holiday season, here's a comforting thought: all those security measures accomplish nothing at enormous costs."
The magazine said since 9/11, the government has spent more than $1.1 trillion on homeland security. Then the article added this:
"To a large number of security analysts, this expenditure makes no sense. The vast cost is not worth the infinitesimal benefit. Not only has the actual threat been exaggerated, they say, but the great bulk of the post-9/11 measures to contain it are little more than security theater; actions that accomplish nothing but are designed to make the government look like it is on the job. In fact, the continuing expenditure on security may actually have made the United States less safe."
And then a second article by ABC News. Probably, Madam Speaker, the most needless, useless agency in the entire Federal Government is the Air Marshal Service. USA Today once reported that more air marshals had been arrested than there were arrests made by air marshals. Talk about a soft, easy job. All these people do is ride back and forth on airplanes, back and forth, back and forth, mostly in first class.
A few days ago, ABC News reported that air marshals took taxpayer-paid trips to visit families and to go to vacation spots. One supervisor was even photographed asleep on a flight while carrying a loaded pistol. ABC reported that managers at the Air Marshal Service acted like "a bunch of school yard punks," and that they "repeatedly made fun of blacks, Latinos, and gays,'' according to agency insiders. I guess they had too much time on their hands and too little to do.
I know, as I said earlier, that it's almost impossible to get Congress to vote against anything that claimed to be for security. But this almost $1 billion that we give to air marshals each year is a total complete waste. When we go ridiculously overboard, Madam Speaker, on security, we are taking money away from individuals and families who really need it, and taking money away from other good things on which this money could be spent.