Monuments to Idiocy

This was fun to see — though I knew at the time that I wasn’t the only person aghast that President George W. Bush was going to federalize airport security after 9-11-01. The solution to a problem is never to give a new group of people federal pay, benefits, and pensions. Here is John Tierney writing at City Journal:

Let’s honor the public servants responsible for giving us the TSA.

Naming anything after a living politician is usually a bad idea; but this summer, we can make an exception. Now that Americans will be spending much of their vacations waiting in security lines at airports, we should honor the public servants responsible. At the entrance to the security checkpoint at LaGuardia Airport, let’s install a large bronze plaque proclaiming it the Senator Charles Schumer Line. Perhaps we could put up a statue, too, or at least a cardboard cutout. Similar monuments can be installed at JFK for Hillary Clinton, at the Phoenix airport for John McCain, and at the home airports of all the other senators who voted to create the Transportation Security Administration.

Even by Washington standards, the creation of the TSA was a blunder of colossal proportions. Experts from around the world warned at the time—in 2001—that federalizing airport security would be ruinously expensive, inefficient, and unsafe. Israel and many European countries had already rejected similar systems. But in the frenzy following the September 11 attacks, U.S. senators paid no attention. They weren’t about to let this crisis go to waste. Both parties wanted to look tough on national security, and the Democrats who controlled the Senate were especially eager to gain campaign contributions from tens of thousands of new federal employees. For many in government, the TSA was a twofer: a chance to create a new fiefdom while also blaming someone else for their own mistakes.

Read more: City Journal

Image credit: Arina P Habich / Shutterstock.