Here's a thought: Let's slash the Homeland Security budget

No, I'm not kidding.

I've railed here on many occasions about the Defense budget, but until now (at least by implication) I've given DHS--except for the Gestapo-cloned TSA--a free pass.

But I've always known that DHS did not deserve it.

In 2005 I worked as a sub-contractor teaching a course at the Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, Alabama. (You really don't want to know.)

During the course of that experience I spoke at length with a man who was the number-two homeland security official in his state. (I'm not going to identify his state; if I did you could figure out who he is.)

He said, "Homeland security funding is only going to go up, even if the terrorists never attack us again. It has become the new revenue-sharing mechanism. Every good-old-boy sheriff in every rural county in [my state] is out looking for some old retired KKK guy so he can claim he's got a terrorist problem, and needs the money."

I was still onboard with the mainstream government-sponsored view back then (they were, to be honest, purchasing my allegiance with quite a good sum of money each day), and thus I was skeptical.

Then, in 2005, Newark NJ spent a quarter-million bucks of DHS money on air-conditioned garbage trucks.

What the hell, it was New Jersey. Everybody who lives around the Garden State knows that score.

Now, however, it's Duncan Donuts, and the fact that the DHS list of critical targets has expanded from 160 (2003) to nearly 300,000 (2006).

Here's Ian Lustick on The War on Terror Feeding Frenzy, just in case you doubt me:

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 and worry that distracts us from more serious problems.

Consider the congressional response.

In mid-2003, the Department of Homeland Security compiled a list of 160 potential terrorist targets, triggering intense efforts by representatives, senators and their constituents to find potential targets in their districts that might require protection and therefore be eligible for federal funding. The result? Widened definitions and blurrier categories of potential targets and mushrooming increases in the infrastructure and assets deemed worthy of protection. By late 2003, the list had increased more than tenfold to 1,849; by 2004 it had grown to 28,364; by 2005 it mushroomed to 77,069; and by 2006 it was approximately 300,000. . . .

According to a 2005 report by the Small Business Administration (SBA) inspector general, 85 percent of the businesses granted low-interest SBA counterterrorism loans failed to establish their eligibility. The SBA authorized 7,000 loans worth more than $3 billion, including $22 million in loans to Dunkin’ Donuts franchises in nine states. . . .

Other cities found more imaginative ways to combat terrorism. In May 2007, Augusta, Ga., officials authorized spending $3 million to protect fire hydrants against terrorist tampering. This spending decision was recommended by the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, which cited a 2004 government report labeling hydrants “a top vulnerability.” Not surprisingly, the American Waterworks Association warmly endorsed the idea of spending nearly $60 billion to protect fire hydrants nationwide. . . .

At least I'll feel safe while I'm eating a glazed cake with sprinkles near a fire hydrant in south Jersey.