Monday
May092005
Fast and furious spending
Monday, May 9, 2005 at 3:00AM
By Ellen Ratner
I'm beginning to wonder if this government of ours is trying to go broke. The New York Times reported on Sunday that we have spent over $4.5 billion on a variety of homeland security geez-whiz gizmos that are now known to be as effective as a Chinese-made Power Ranger when it comes to protecting America. So what is our government's answer to this display of gross mismanagement? Spend another warehouse of the taxpayer's money.
Remember, we have to "keep America safe." Imagine if the management team of public company reported to the shareholders that they had blown $4.5 billion on junk and now needs more money to buy the really good stuff. Would you keep giving that management team money? Would you keep that management team around for next year's meeting?
A friend of mine who spent a career in the military and now works as a liaison between the defense industry and Congress told me in the months following Sept.11, our government was spending money like "drunk sailors." They were handing out contracts to the favorite usual suspects. Everything was kosher so long as "homeland security" was stamped on the project.
There is a bright side to this drunken spending spree. Security companies are a strong emerging market. The sector has grown so much, it needs its own websites to track the stocks – securitystockwatch.com is one example. It even breaks security into sectors such as bio terror and military. It's no wonder the security industry needs its own stock index when government spending went from $5 billion per year in 2000 to an estimated $84 billion in 2004.
What do our fearless leaders have to say about this gross mismanagement of taxpayer dollars? Representative Christopher Cox – a California Republican who is the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee – makes the government's case crystal clear:
After 9-11, we had to show how committed we were by spending hugely greater amounts of money than ever before, as rapidly as possible. That brought us what we might expect, which is some expensive mistakes. This has been the difficult learning curve of the new discipline known as homeland security.
Did I copy the congressman's statement down right? Did he just say that in order to respond to 9-11 we had to spend huge amounts of money as rapidly as possible? Some Americans may say, "Freedom isn't free." But $4.5 billion gone down the drain? With nothing to show for it? Sounds like the only "freedom" our tax dollars are buying is "financial freedom" for the security sector.
Speaking of buying freedom, another little factoid flew under the radar screen this past week. Surprise, surprise: There's money missing in Iraq – up to $100 million that we know of. This does not account for Iraq's oil revenues that the Coalition Provisional Authority, aka the United States of America, managed to spend prior to the June handover to the Iraqi government. We managed to spend over $19 of the $20 billion of Iraqi oil revenues just prior to the June 2004 handover to the Iraqis, while all but a few hundred million of the $18.4 billion dollar U.S. aid project sat in our piggy bank.
I guess Congressman Cox is right: When it comes to spending money, it's best to spend as much and as fast as possible.
I'm beginning to wonder if this government of ours is trying to go broke. The New York Times reported on Sunday that we have spent over $4.5 billion on a variety of homeland security geez-whiz gizmos that are now known to be as effective as a Chinese-made Power Ranger when it comes to protecting America. So what is our government's answer to this display of gross mismanagement? Spend another warehouse of the taxpayer's money.
Remember, we have to "keep America safe." Imagine if the management team of public company reported to the shareholders that they had blown $4.5 billion on junk and now needs more money to buy the really good stuff. Would you keep giving that management team money? Would you keep that management team around for next year's meeting?
A friend of mine who spent a career in the military and now works as a liaison between the defense industry and Congress told me in the months following Sept.11, our government was spending money like "drunk sailors." They were handing out contracts to the favorite usual suspects. Everything was kosher so long as "homeland security" was stamped on the project.
There is a bright side to this drunken spending spree. Security companies are a strong emerging market. The sector has grown so much, it needs its own websites to track the stocks – securitystockwatch.com is one example. It even breaks security into sectors such as bio terror and military. It's no wonder the security industry needs its own stock index when government spending went from $5 billion per year in 2000 to an estimated $84 billion in 2004.
What do our fearless leaders have to say about this gross mismanagement of taxpayer dollars? Representative Christopher Cox – a California Republican who is the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee – makes the government's case crystal clear:
After 9-11, we had to show how committed we were by spending hugely greater amounts of money than ever before, as rapidly as possible. That brought us what we might expect, which is some expensive mistakes. This has been the difficult learning curve of the new discipline known as homeland security.
Did I copy the congressman's statement down right? Did he just say that in order to respond to 9-11 we had to spend huge amounts of money as rapidly as possible? Some Americans may say, "Freedom isn't free." But $4.5 billion gone down the drain? With nothing to show for it? Sounds like the only "freedom" our tax dollars are buying is "financial freedom" for the security sector.
Speaking of buying freedom, another little factoid flew under the radar screen this past week. Surprise, surprise: There's money missing in Iraq – up to $100 million that we know of. This does not account for Iraq's oil revenues that the Coalition Provisional Authority, aka the United States of America, managed to spend prior to the June handover to the Iraqi government. We managed to spend over $19 of the $20 billion of Iraqi oil revenues just prior to the June 2004 handover to the Iraqis, while all but a few hundred million of the $18.4 billion dollar U.S. aid project sat in our piggy bank.
I guess Congressman Cox is right: When it comes to spending money, it's best to spend as much and as fast as possible.
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