Homeland Security Must Not Sink Under Its Own Weight

(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today raised concerns about the size and structure of the proposed Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  “We must be prepared to deal with foreign aggression within our borders,” said CAGW President Thomas Schatz, “and because of the seriousness of the goal, we must forget about political posturing and take care in its method.  This means reexamining the content of the proposal to be wary of unintended consequences.”

The Department of Homeland Security is the largest reorganization of the federal government.  It is budget-neutral and proposes to shuffle federal offices and employees into a more easily managed structure.  More than 100 offices that deal with national security overlap in their purposes; they could be efficiently coordinated to react as a whole to aggression.

However, the watchdog identified several looming problems in the DHS bill:

• It is executed poorly.  For political reasons, only 22 out of the 100 offices that share the burden will transfer under DHS jurisdiction.  The reorganization is even taking some from where they're not supposed to be and filing them in an even more questionable place.  For instance, the Secret Service currently habits the Department of the Treasury, but a committee instead moved it to the Justice Department. 
• It will drown in bureaucracy.  Other cabinet departments created with a similar lack of focus have remained similarly irrelevant.  The 20 year-old Department of Energy has yet to achieve its only goal, a cohesive energy policy one way or the other.  America’s poor educational system testifies to the Department of Education’s failure to do much of anything.
• Its reach exceeds its grasp.  Quick threat appraisal and reaction requires flexibility – freedom from congressional meddling.  But the new Department wouldn’t even have the freedom to control its funding internally, to transfer money where need dictates.  It may not even get a waiver from civil service regulations mandating six different personnel pay systems.  Red tape bogs down the tight, responsive management that emergencies require.
• And now, it’s being hijacked by unions.  The 1931 Davis-Bacon Act forces federal contractors to pay local union wages, even if others are willing to work for a lower price.  If spliced onto the Security bill by Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Ct.) it would mean a lot less money would go to national security.  Rep. Morella (R-Md.) even wants to kibosh the DHS exemption from union negotiations, like the CIA and FBI.

The Department’s foundation is built upon sand.  It should lay upon rock.  The DHS is a mishmashed hash, currently poised to make the government more confused in the short term – which will necessitate more oversight, more cash, and more employees to regulate and manage – and thus leave us more open to attack.