Your Anti-Terrorism Dollars at Work

Matt Welch | June 16, 2005

The Omaha World-Herald (registration req'd) took a detailed look at how Nebraska has been spending its anti-terrorism moolah from the federal government. That state, which "got more than twice as much money per capita in 2004 as California, New York or Pennsylvania," now boasts of a $150,000 mobile bomb-detonating robot in Douglas County, a $6,250 John Deere 4x2 Gator for Adams County, and some cattle-herding equipment for Cherry County. Could be worse, of course:

some communities spent money for such items as air-conditioned garbage trucks in New Jersey, a Dale Carnegie speaking course in Washington, D.C., and a paging system at the South Dakota State Fair.

Link via Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Comments

gaius marius|6.16.05 @ 12:40PM|#

$150,000 mobile bomb-detonating robot

that'll get a lot of work in north platte.

|6.16.05 @ 12:48PM|#

Can't you for once think of the children.

|6.16.05 @ 12:58PM|#

Nothing surprises me anymore about politicians and how they waste money, except what stupid idiot sheep the majority of our fellow citizens are for not even giving a peep about the flagrant misuse of "allocated resources."

I did slightly chuckle, though, when I saw the Gator listed as an "anti-terrorist" tool. We used those in theatre in Iraq and Kuwait, and the Gator is nothing more than a jive golf cart with aspirations of being an ATV. It's intended for short distance travel on FARMS (and as transportation for lazy military personnel who can't be bothered to get off their Dept. of Navy or Army-issued asses to hike half-a-mile in garrison).

Anti-terrorist device indeed! Sounds like an episode of "Reno 911", with Nebraska cops mounting assult rifles on Gators as they chase (at 15 mph) the maize-stealing thugs out of our cornfields.

But this is par for course with our elected greedheads. In 1998 when Gov. Howdy Doody, oops, Bob Taft, was running for gubernatorial office (after totally trashing and jacking up the Secretary of State of Ohio office), I sat in a private meeting with Taft, his running mate and my boss, an elected official. I asked Taft what he intended to do with the Tobacco Settlement funds the state was to receive (Tobacco was the golden windfall of state political choice prior to 9/11). Not once did he mention using funds for anti-smoking health programs which was the intended use of the so-called "settlement".

Can't wait to see what the next excuse for taxplayer-fleecing and pocket-lining will be after Clinton-era Tobacco, and Bush-era Terrorism windfalls. Maybe protection from Martian Invaders ....

"If you read H.G. Wells, you're supporting terrorism .... "

|6.16.05 @ 1:01PM|#

Given the indisputable soundness of the "flypaper" theory of Islamist terror...

And given the monstrous threat facing this country from environmental terrorism (the most significant domestic terror threat facing America)...

These grants should obviously be dispersed to the locations that are the most likely to experience terror attacks - that is, areas where recycling levels are highest.

No, shoot, that still wouldn't steer to the pork towards Republican districts. Lemme think...

|6.16.05 @ 1:08PM|#

[i]that'll get a lot of work in north platte.[/i]

North Platte isn't in Douglas County.

|6.16.05 @ 1:09PM|#

joe-

I think it's a good thing that the anti-terror money is going disproportionately to the heartland. Better that the federal money go to good, upstanding, self-reliant folk! Give it to the rugged individualists!

|6.16.05 @ 1:17PM|#

Yes, those same "rugged individualists" who use shameless, free market instruments like farm subsidies ...

... and Gators ...

|6.16.05 @ 1:22PM|#

When garbagemen ride in comfort, we are all safer...

|6.16.05 @ 1:26PM|#

"some cattle-herding equipment for Cherry County"

What, are they expecting attacks by cow bombs?

Or is there a new, heretofore unsuspected risk from Mad Cow?

|6.16.05 @ 1:27PM|#

I'm surprised they didn't order up a brown-water navy.

|6.16.05 @ 1:28PM|#

I've lived in Omaha my whole life and I have yet to meet more than a handful of people that would consider themselves rugged individualists.

Adam|6.16.05 @ 1:36PM|#

Nice work, federales. And good work catching the bastards who exploded the grenades in the planters outside the British embassy in New York. Wait, they didn't catch..?

David Woycechowsky|6.16.05 @ 1:41PM|#

I think harbors should be the regions with the highest per capita homeland security spending. Followed by places with international airports and/or national borders.

What is Nebraska getting *any* of the money for?

|6.16.05 @ 1:51PM|#

But a $150,000 mobile bomb-detonating robot sounds REALLY COOL. I wonder if it comes in five separate parts that are each cool-looking robots, and when things get really bad, they all form into one really huge, bad-ass mother-fucker, all to a shred'n 80s style guitar solo playing in the background.

|6.16.05 @ 1:53PM|#

I've lived in Omaha my whole life and I have yet to meet more than a handful of people that would consider themselves rugged individualists.

I was referring to the way that conservative pundits stereotype the heartland and the coasts. In the heartland everybody is upstanding and self-reliant and would never run to the government for favors. But in those accursed coastal cities they're all a bunch of welfare recipients.

Or so say the conservatives.

|6.16.05 @ 2:04PM|#

But in those accursed coastal cities they're all a bunch of welfare recipients.

Or so say the conservatives.

They aren't?

I watch TV. I know the truth when I see it, and that there angry Irish fella, with the show on Fox News, he is preaching it from the mountain tops (not that anyone in Omaha knows what a mountain top looks like). I also seen on the TV shows about how much crime y'all got in them cities. They had to keep making new verions of Law and Order to keep up with all them killings.

[/joke]

|6.16.05 @ 2:12PM|#

Hey, where's my comment? I sent it in like an hour ago. What's with this new system?

|6.16.05 @ 2:12PM|#

After the 9/11 attacks, Bush was flown immediately to Offutt Air Force Base just outside Omaha and the Strategic Air Command is nearby, so we're top of the list for a first strike. It's no secret that al Qaeda wants to control the Missouri River. And do you doubt that West Nile Virus - which HAS KILLED DOZENS OF NEBRASKANS and threatened countless others - isn't a terrorist tool?

Our malls are full of blonde haired, blue eyed, freedom loving targets. Spare the coasts, we must protect the heartland! If Iraq is ground zero for the War on Terrorism in the Middle East then Nebraska is square one on the Western front. Think of the children. It's madness here, madness. more reinforcements needed, we can't hold much longer. wire more money. end is near. stop.

|6.16.05 @ 2:14PM|#

Hmm, I guess it works now. Sorry. I had gotten a message saying my post was going to be screened, but it never showed up.

|6.16.05 @ 2:17PM|#

My OP was:

Next season on "24":

Jack must make a difficult decision. Terrorists have threatened to simultaneously blow up the Vice-Grip factory in De Witt, a grain elevator near North Platte, the world's largest prairie dog off of I-80, and the University of Nebraska football program. Jack can save only one; which ones will he sacrifice? Oh, the humanity!

|6.16.05 @ 2:35PM|#

If they ever blew up the Nebraska football program there would be mass suicides across the state. So I hope he saves the Vice-Grip factory and the prairie dog.

|6.16.05 @ 2:44PM|#

The problem is the Homeland Security funding formula, instituted by first Patrick Leahy, then
Hal Rogers, from the populous states of Vermont
and Kentucky responsible for this imbalance. On
the other hand, the pre-election Bin Laden tape,
threatened Bush voting states, and consequently
would absolve Kerry voting states; so by that
measure. . .If only Mohammed Quahtani, had been
able to get on Flight 93, then Durbin, Kennedy
& company, wouldn't have to complain

|6.16.05 @ 2:44PM|#

Or the new CBS hit

CSI: Omaha !!

I guess they could use the Who's "Now I'm a Farmer" to keep with the motif of the theme songs, as crime scene investigators dig up a corn field looking for clues to who spat chew on Bobby Earl Johnson's CAT Wheat Thresher ...

"Now I'm a farmer, and I'm digging, digging, digging, digging, digging
Now I'm a farmer, and I'm digging, digging, digging, digging, digging
It's alarming how charming it is to be a-farming
How calming and balming the effect of the air"

Starring Tom Arnold, and the best looking Walmart Underwear Models from central Nebraska ...

(Sorry, but it's finally nice to see another state get it besides mine, Ohio.

Oh wait, we're the state that invested the Bureau of Workers Compensation Retirement Fund in "rare coins". Sigh, just kick our asses, Nebraskans ... )

|6.16.05 @ 2:44PM|#

Sir, if you don't give me a lift on your tractor the terrorists will wipe out the entire city! Dozens of innocent people will die!

|6.16.05 @ 3:02PM|#

TRUE LIES 2

Schwarzenegger grabs ignition key from startled farmer.

"I NEED DIS!!"

He feverishly rolls down the fields on the tractor, brandishing an assault rifle in one hand while chasing Arab corn thieves. He corners one and runs him over, slowly and repeatedly, delivering the trademark line for the film:

"DAT'S ONE PROBLEM THAT WON'T KEEP CROPPING UP"

|6.16.05 @ 3:08PM|#

Am I the only person who thinks a paging system for the State Fair actually makes a lot of sense, and is consistent with the purpose of the money? Shouldn't the largest public concentration of people in the state have some sort of communication system?

You can laugh about the bomb disposal truck, but again, don't blame Nebraska for spending security money on things like bomb disposal.

I also think the "per-capita" analysis is kind of silly. This obviously distorts any grant given to small populations. Welcome to the Federal system.

|6.16.05 @ 3:37PM|#

Am I the only person who thinks a paging system for the State Fair actually makes a lot of sense

Yes. :-)

|6.16.05 @ 3:46PM|#

Bubba-

I don't think it should all be based on exact proportionality by population. I would agree that security measures for a big target like the state fair make sense. And the cost of such measures may not always be proportional to population.

If the funding formulas were based on (1) just how likely of a target something is and (2) how much will it cost to do the job in a reasonable manner, then I wouldn't be too upset by deviations from proportionality. But the formulas are much more arbitrary than that, and much of the spending is dubious.