Homeland Security Pork
This article is a perfect illustrating of the wasteful, pork-barrel, political spending that we like to call “homeland security.” And to think we could actually be spending this money on something useful.
When the fire department in the tiny Berkshire hamlet of Cheshire needed a new fire truck, it asked Uncle Sam for a little help.
The response last month was stunning: a $665,962 homeland security grant.
The award was nearly 26 times the annual budget of the volunteer fire department in the town of 3,500. And the rub: The department is not allowed to spend it on a fire truck.
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The town does have the Cheshire Cheese Monument, a sizable concrete sculpture of a cheese press commemorating a 1,450-pound cheese hunk given by town elders to Thomas Jefferson in 1801. But its value as a terrorist target is not readily apparent.
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…Sweet said he might use some of the money to recruit high school students. Or he might put some of the windfall into a marketing campaign to lure volunteers to Cheshire.
“It’ll be on billboards, TVs, and radio stations, and that kind of stuff,” he said. “We’ll have to spend it wisely.”
How many times is this story being repeated across the country? I’m sure the town needs its fire truck, and I hope it gets it. But this is just appalling.
Another Kevin • February 12, 2007 7:44 AM
Well, let’s see. The money is for recruiting new volunteers. What better way for the good burghers of Cheshire to make volunteering attractive than to promise prospects a brand new, shiny, red fire engine? I mean, really, where is their imagination?
Alternatively, you could write to the Wisconsin congresscritters and tell them that Uncle Sam is supporting Massachusetts cheese. That’ll surely get action!
Let it be said, though, that the town did ask for a money to support its volunteer force as well as to buy the fire truck. Perhaps this is the first of two grants, or it won one and lost the other?
In any case, in the grand scheme of security theatre, this isn’t all that bad. I can’t think of a much better way to improve our real security than to fund front-line emergency responders. Putting out fires is almost always useful. Despite the fact that the article’s author obviously has an axe to grind, if the government is dispensing pork, fire brigades are a pretty innocuous barrel.