$93 Billion Doesn’t Buy What it Used To

It was some terrific news this past week to know that three drunk teenagers were able to steal an airplane and tool around in New York’s airspace for five hours without anyone knowing. Was it Miller Time not only in that cockpit, but for whoever we pay to know when something like that is going down? How many millions of dollars does it take to ensure that Homeland Security is able to prevent the exact same type of attack that prompted its creation in the first place?

We’re flushing billions of dollars down the toilet each year on a missile defense system that doesn’t have the necessary science at its disposal to make it work. Bush promised in 2000 that the system would be up and running by 2004, but as everyone but him has realized in those four years, you can double the money and it still won’t make a difference. In spite of this reality, billions go towards preventing North Korea from attacking us, while holes in our security that have already been exploited continue to go unfixed.

The Department of Homeland Security employs over 180 thousand people with a budget of over 40 billion, mostly discretionary. Boeing’s missile defense shield that hasn’t worked cost taxpayers 53 billion. Add the two numbers together and what do you get? Three drunk teenagers tooling around in New York’s airspace.

When politicians talk about ‘big government’, this is the kind of thing that drives them crazy. Since this example of it is the creation of Republicans, there’s no persistent drumbeat screaming for accountability. When too much money was going to people on welfare, we never heard the end of it from those very same Republicans. The truth in all this is that if individual Americans are getting the money, something’s wrong, but if businesses are getting the money – regardless of whether anything actually gets accomplished – its all good.

All the words that get flung around about Iraq, missing white girls and Christian ideals manage to bury this gruesome reality that we’re flushing billions of dollars down the toilet each year on things that no Americans get to realize any benefit from. How much longer can we remain silent? Better yet, how much longer can we continue to make the job of generations to come that much more difficult, with all the money we’re having to borrow from countries like China every year just to stay afloat? They’re now attempting to purchase American corporations right out from under us.

Three drunk teenagers point out how much better we are at securing ourselves since 9/11, and China is buying the stars off of our flag, one by one. Above all else, in the upcoming years we need to ensure that we’re getting the bang for our buck when looking at that pay stub. As of right now, I have no confidence that we are.