Congress: The TSA Is Wasting Hundreds of Millions In Taxpayer Dollars

TheGift73 writes with a Techdirt story about a House Oversight Committee report that is very critical of the TSA's handling of money. "The House Oversight Committee has come out with a report slamming the TSA for tremendous amounts of waste, specifically in the 'deployment and storage' of its scanning equipment. Basically, it sounds like the TSA likes to go on giant spending sprees, buying up security equipment and then never, ever using it." Earlier this month Rand Paul laid out his plan for dealing with the TSA.

Re:It's worth the expense

[AngryDeuce]

If the government has to spend a bunch of money to make sure that doesn't happen, I'm perfectly okay with that.

What happens when they spend the money and it still happens? Is that cool, too? These guys are fucking criminals, I proctored the TSA testing for 3 years. Believe me, half of them looked like they were either under the influence of narcotics or had more than a passing familiarity with them. You are absolutely no safer with them then you were with the security you had before 9/11.

Re:I feel better.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lost lives as a result of cancer from being subjected to the scanners...

Re:That was Rand Paul.

[cpt kangarooski]

Government does produce wealth, by tackling matters of public good which the private sector is unwilling or unable to handle, and by dealing with market failures, and by regulating private entities that are unwilling or unable to act in a restrained manner. However, government should not act for its own benefit, but instead for the benefit of its citizenry, residents, and others, somewhat like a non-profit organization, so this might not be apparent to you.

The myth of the "average" gov't worker

[mcharlet]

It's actually pretty astonishing how many really good people are in the level of government just beneath senior leadership. We know people who work 12-16 hours a day at extremely high-stress, difficult jobs that would stretch the capabilities of most people. They love working in government despite the fact that they would get an instant raise of +25% (and the chance to get an annual bonus) if they moved to the private sector. The book "To Big to Fail" has a great description of Paulson looking at his staff in astonishment thinking that all of these folks would be making far more money if they weren't there in the room with him. I think it's misleading to consider the "average" government worker. The *best* government workers are very, very good but have their salaries roughly capped at around 150k. This is probably a pretty good bargain for us taxpayers.