Friday, December 16, 2011

The Homeland Security Snow-Cone Machine

I saw this a bit ago but somehow didn't blog it. Lowering the Bar wrote about The Homeland Security Snow-Cone Machine.

"Still, it is something special when a homeland-security grant is used to buy a snow-cone machine. Actually, thirteen snow-cone machines, one for every county in Michigan Homeland Security Region 6."

“It is used to attract people so they can be educated and prepared for homeland security,” [Sandeep] Dey said from his office in Muskegon. “More importantly, they (homeland security officials) felt in a medical emergency the machine was capable of making ice packs which could be used for medical purposes.”

So look, in giant programs stupid things happen. They (hopefully) get found out and fixed; hopefully the individual case and people involved, but more likely with more bureaucracy. My question is this, shouldn't the Republican solution to this incident be to get rid of the Department of Homeland Security?

I mean that mostly seriously. They dislike the mandate so they want to get rid of the entire Affordable Care Act. They want to get rid of the CFPB and all of Dodd-Frank. Rick Perry wants to get rid of three complete executive branch departments. I'm not sure what specific thing he has against each of them but since he can't even name them he probably doesn't either. Ron Paul wants to return us to the gold standard and wants to get rid of the Fed (among other things). I could be glib and say that all want to get rid of science and all regulations the previous list are I think all actual policy positions.

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