More Efficient Bureaucracy?

I’m shocked! It appears that the expense and displacement caused by the creation of the Department of Homeland Security has not resolved inter-agency turf wars. Well, not so much shocked, actually. According to The Aviation Nation, ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) has been avoiding working with the FBI on terrorism cases.

This points to a need for voters to beware. Politicians like to choose play multiple choice when dealing with a problem: a) Create an agency or commission with the right name, b) Draft a bill with a title that promises to fix it, c) Allocate some money, irrespective of whether that money will solve the problem or e) deny the problem and hope it goes away.

If any of us are feeling confident of our ability to respond to a major natural disaster, we should consider Hurricane Katrina, a predictable disaster, at least for a couple of days in advance, to which we were nonetheless not prepared to respond. Imagine a sudden terrorist attack coming now. Would our bureaucracy pull together and work and play well as one team?

I suspect we’d have plenty of heroic action in the field, and plenty of bureaucrats who had essentially no impact on the situation trying to sort out blame and credit afterwards.