The Trump transition crew on Wednesday introduced that he’s nominating South Dakota governor Kristi Noem as the following head of the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS). Within the coming weeks, we’ll hear loads about Noem’s private politics and origins. We’ll additionally hear about how the DHS is, because the AP places it, “one of the biggest government agencies that will be integral to his vow to secure the border and carry out a massive deportation operation.”
Sadly, all this misses crucial level concerning the DHS which is that the DHS was invented in 2002 to justify extra authorities spending, to reward political allies, and to affect native governments with federal grants.
For voters who supported Trump as a result of they thought a Trump presidency would possibly truly cut back authorities waste, they need to now be asking why Trump is appointing any new DHS head in any respect. The one factor Trump ought to do with the DHS is abolish it.
For youthful readers, or folks with horrible reminiscences, this would possibly sound radical or excessive. However, I can guarantee you, pricey reader, that america by some means managed to get alongside for greater than 225 years earlier than this division was created twenty-two years in the past by Congress and the Bush Administration.
A lot of what the Division does right now was not new in 2002, in fact. The federal authorities already had a border patrol, and it already collected tariffs on imports. The Coast Guard was alive and nicely. The Secret Service already existed, as did varied companies associated to nuclear vitality and the inspection of agricultural tasks.
However, the DHS has all the time been greater than only a reorganization of current companies. The DHS has overseen new slush funds for home police departments. It’s the DHS that has largely facilitated the militarization of native police forces. As Wired put it in 2020, “the Homeland Security Grant Program has funneled billions of dollars to law enforcement agencies to acquire military-grade equipment.”
Nonetheless, the creation of the DHS has executed nothing to make the border safer, or to facilitate the enforcement of tariffs. The DHS has by no means been essential to patrol US coastal waters. Relatively, federal bureaucrats and elected officers pursued the creation of this new huge authorities division for political causes.
The DHS was created to be a cabinet-level company, and the factor about cabinet-level standing is that the transfer makes it simpler for the bureaucrats answerable for the companies to politically agitate for extra authorities spending of their favor, and to push larger authorities generally. It’s no coincidence that because the US authorities has grown ever bigger and extra intrusive, so has the variety of cabinet-level companies. So, now we’ve got the EPA, the SBA, and the departments of HUD, Vitality, and Training all supplied with extra direct entry to the president and the media. Every part they do is deemed “essential.” Every part they do, we’re advised, is a matter of nationwide significance.
DHS isn’t any completely different. When the 9/11 assaults occurred, they uncovered the sheer incompetence, laziness, and inefficiency of presidency safety and protection organizations. Yr after 12 months, a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} have been poured into these organizations — along with the numerous billions spent on the Pentagon. However after they have been proven to be asleep on the change, what occurred? Relatively than have their budgets reduce, and senior officers fired in droves — as ought to have occurred — George W. Bush and his cronies determined that what the federal authorities actually wanted was a brand new division into which billions extra in taxpayer cash could possibly be poured.
The was politically essential within the sense that making DHS a division made it simpler to name for each extra funding for its constituent companies.
It has definitely labored.
Previous to the creation of the DHS, “homeland security” features have been hardly ever funded at ranges exceeding $20 billion per 12 months. Since 2002, although, federal spending on these features—now consolidated into the DHS—has soared. Since 2001, the full finances for these actions has almost tripled, rising from $28 billion in 2001 to $112 billion in 2024. (That’s in inflation-adjusted 2023 {dollars}.) For the reason that Chilly Struggle ended, by the way in which, spending on so-called homeland safety has elevated by greater than six-fold.
Since 2001, has it actually turn out to be nearly thrice costlier—in inflation adjusted phrases, thoughts you—to patrol the border, to gather tariffs, and to examine baggage for weapons on the airport? It’s troublesome to see how.
What we do know is that the DHS has turn out to be an essential pass-through for presidency largesse. A few of this goes to native governments, and these {dollars} give the federal authorities extra energy by offering yet one more carrot the feds can maintain out to native politicians. Billions extra goes into the FEMA black gap which spends prodigiously on federal brokers who use DHS {dollars} as a method of punishing their political opponents.
Whereas the Division was created in response to the 9/11 assaults, the Division does nothing to handle something like a 9/11-style assault. All of the companies that have been supposed to offer intelligence on such assaults — the FBI as an example, which failed miserably on 9/11 — exist already in different departments and proceed to get pleasure from enormous budgets. In the meantime, the Transportation Safety Administration — an company that has by no means caught a single terrorist—has managed to smuggle no less than $100 million value of cocaine.
As soon as upon a time, “homeland security” was imagined to be the job of the Division of Protection. however, it appears the Pentagon has been too busy in Ukraine or Iraq to bother itself with the protection of the borders and airspace of america. Despite having been freed of its accountability for “the homeland,” nevertheless, the Pentagon’s finances simply retains getting larger. In 2024, it was at a thirteen-year excessive and stays—in inflation adjusted phrases—above the degrees of Reagan’s Chilly Struggle spending spree. Pentagon spending is up by 57 %, inflation-adjusted, since 2001.
There is no such thing as a doubt, nevertheless, that heading the Division in Washington can be nice for the profession of Kristy Noem. She’ll get invited to cupboard conferences, go on nationwide TV, and customarily benefit from the pampered lifetime of a high-ranking bureaucrat. In the meantime, American taxpayers can pay increasingly more, in depreciating {dollars}, for yet one more federal division.