Who Will Rid Us of This Turbulent TSA?

Nick Gillespie | June 30, 2005

More great news courtesy of everyone's favorite new crapola federal bureaucracy, the Transportation Security Administration. Today's Wash Post tallies "The High Cost of a Rush to Security." The short version: A federal audit challenges $300 million of the $741 million spent to "assess and hire airport passenger screeners" in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Among the lowlights flagged in the Post's account:

$526.95 for one phone call from the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Chicago to Iowa City.

$1,180 for 20 gallons of Starbucks Coffee--$3.69 a cup--at the Santa Clara Marriott in California.

$1,540 to rent 14 extension cords at $5 each per day for three weeks at the Wyndham Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa in Telluride, Colo.

$8,100 for elevator operators at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan.

$5.4 million claimed for nine months' salary for the chief executive of an "event logistics" firm that received a contract before it was incorporated and went out of business after the contract ended.

Whole thing here.

Reason chronicled "the sorry record of the TSA" here.

Comments

|6.30.05 @ 11:46AM|#

The elevator operators at the Marquis would be justified, I suppose, by the fact that they were used to limit entry to the floor(s?) being used by the TSA.

They had a full metal detector dealie you had to go through when you got to the floors used for testing.

They must have spent a fat bundle of cash on that space, which they apparently occupied for months.

|6.30.05 @ 11:48AM|#

That is, that's how TSA would justify them, not how the elevator operators were justifiable in the sense of being good use of taxpayer money.

Though, if you're going to quibble about elevator operators, you're kinda missing the overarching concern about setting up camp in a pricey Times Square hotel for several months.

|6.30.05 @ 11:52AM|#

Hey, those extension cords were Union. Quality costs money.

Ron Hardin|6.30.05 @ 11:56AM|#

The extension cord rental is reasonable, assuming they're terrorist-proof. You plug in to some city that's still running.

|6.30.05 @ 12:02PM|#

Patriots!

|6.30.05 @ 12:07PM|#

The worst thing about their spending is that I spent about 12 hours at the Marriott Marquis going through their second-round test, most of which consisted of waiting, and there was no food, and no breaks to get food elsewhere. You'd think they could have spared a few bucks for bagels.

(Worst of all, I was offered a job, but then the guy realized I was applying for the New Haven airport, which was fully staffed. So it was all for naught.)

|6.30.05 @ 12:18PM|#

A Reasonoid working for the TSA? Wouldn't your brain self-destruct after 10 minutes on the job?

That expensive phone call has got "out-call" written all over it. Not that I'd know anything about that...

|6.30.05 @ 12:28PM|#

"A Reasonoid working for the TSA? Wouldn't your brain self-destruct after 10 minutes on the job?"

I'd been out of work (IT) a looooong time, with very few prospects.

The guy who offered me the TSA job at the end of the ordeal nearly choked when he saw my prior salary.

|6.30.05 @ 12:32PM|#

Remember after 9/11 how appalled the left was that anyone could even suggest handing airport security over to the private sector?

How's that sound now?

|6.30.05 @ 12:40PM|#

Ralphus--it sounds like we just need some Democrats in charge and the TSA will clean right up.

|6.30.05 @ 12:53PM|#

Of course.

What was I thinking?

|6.30.05 @ 1:11PM|#

I know from first-hand observation that the government sucks in handling contracts. Contract Officers on the public side are often underexperienced, oftimes overworked, and frankly way overmatched against the sharks on the private side.

Contractors know all the ins, outs, and dirty tricks to squeeze every conceivable penny out of an agreement, and this is all to the tax payers' expense. This is a huge problem.

|6.30.05 @ 1:22PM|#

Mr NG - see, that's why the government needs to control everything. That way, taxpayers don't get bilked out of millions by the greedy private sector. Cuz we know that no one in the government would ever be greedy.

Right?

|6.30.05 @ 1:42PM|#

Lowdog:

Dude, don't get me wrong. I am a rabid Adam Smith/Friedman capitalist.

I'm just saying that simple government business involves contracting work out to the private sector, and many times these contracts are skewed heavily on the private side. This means the least amount of work to the highest cost, which is bad for the taxpayer.

Contract Officers need to be fully educated, motivated, and given the means to secure the most amount of work to the least amount of tax money.

|6.30.05 @ 1:54PM|#

Mr NG - no need to defend yourself, I got your point. I was just being silly and saying what the lefty in my head would say. :)

|6.30.05 @ 3:13PM|#

Yeah, sure, it's easy to laugh now, but when terrorists hijack an elevator and crash it into a nuclear plant you'll realize that we didn't spend ENOUGH on TSA elevator operators.

|6.30.05 @ 3:18PM|#

Jennifer writes: Yeah, sure, it's easy to laugh now, but when terrorists hijack an elevator and crash it into a nuclear plant you'll realize that we didn't spend ENOUGH on TSA elevator operators.

TSA elevator operators with Guns!

|6.30.05 @ 3:57PM|#

Jennifer reminds me again why she is one of my favorite posters here! Hysterical!
By the way, is anybody around here actually surprised that the government was able to spend money like this? Has it really come to this, that we (the general population, not just us enlightened ones on this board) hear about waste after waste (not just from the TSA, but from all government agencies) and we react by making a few jokes and shrugging our shoulders because all of this is really to be expected by now? We really are fucked, aen't we?

|6.30.05 @ 3:59PM|#

Oh, and though this is slightly off-topic: the TSA guys I dealt with yesterday were uniformly rude to me and every other passenger.

And I smuggled a pair of nail clippers through. Cutting hangnails has never been so satisfying.

|6.30.05 @ 4:05PM|#

Thank you for the compliment, Swede. I can't speak for others here, but as for me--I laugh about things like this because the only alternative is to cry.

And you're right. We really ARE fucked.

|6.30.05 @ 4:09PM|#

Jennifer, I'll bet you also rested easy knowing that if anyone tried to hijack the airplane, you would be armed with a deadly weapon... one that they wouldn;t be expecting on-board.

|6.30.05 @ 4:26PM|#

Damn right, Tarran. I'd like to see somebody try to hijack a plane with their fingernails cut down to the quick. And the pilots and my fellow passengers were DAMNED lucky that I didn't have any desire to hijack the plane myself. All I would have had to do is stand up, climb over the two fat people seated between me and the aisle, reach into the overhead compartment, take down my wheeled suitcase, dig into the secret x-ray-proof compartment where the clippers (and some cotton balls) were, and then the passengers would have been helpless with fear at the sight of a short, skinny, overcaffeinated redhead waving a pair of nail clippers and screaming, "Take this plane to Denver!"

"We're already going to Denver," somebody might have pointed out.

"Oh. Well. Carry on, then."

Close call. The passengers never knew how close to disaster they were.

|6.30.05 @ 4:31PM|#

Contract Officers need to be fully educated, motivated, and given the means to secure the most amount of work to the least amount of tax money.

Another part of the solution, maybe, is to get rid of cost-plus contracts. Maybe that's just a military thing, but a lot of contracts are, "We'll pay you to develop it, plus any odd costs that come up along the way." If you had more fixed-cost contracts, rather than pay-as-you-go, it'd be a lot harder to screw taxpayers out of their money.

And remember, as always: Kerry would have been worse.

|6.30.05 @ 5:26PM|#

I used to dream of running my own business and working hard. I think now I should just get a cushy government job and live it up and not actually have to work. Just go on TDY trips to exotic places, attend meaning conferences, and do it all on the taxpayer's dime.

|6.30.05 @ 6:52PM|#

All joking aside, there is something wrong when a citizen of a presumably free country cannot cut off a hangnail in her hotel room without committing a minor act of rebellion against the government.

|7.1.05 @ 12:40AM|#

cannot cut off a hangnail in her hotel room without committing a minor act of rebellion against the government

Anarchist! Don't you know that you have to solicit the services of a state-licensed nail technician?

|7.1.05 @ 8:54AM|#

Oh, the ban on nail clippers and knitting needles were rescinded a while ago. Cigarette lighters are the new nail clippers all the chic smugglers are carrying. I regret to inform you that your clippers were perfectly legal.

New international flight procedures on last night's flight: customs and immigration officials lurking in the jetway in teams of three and ambushing people as they are boarding. "How much cash are you carrying? Take it out and show it to us so we can count it." One guy was refusing to tell them where his car was parked and who was going to take care of it while he was out of the country.