Do We Need a Department of Homeland Security?

Writing in The Washington Times, Cato Institute legal policy analyst David Rittgers makes the case for abolishing the Department of Homeland Security:

George W. Bush was right before he was wrong. Mr. Bush initially opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, but he bowed to political pressure and formed a new bureaucracy and increased domestic-security funds. Ten years after Sept. 11, it's time to rethink the very existence of that department because the additional layers of government and wasteful spending do not provide enough security to justify its existence….

In creating Homeland Security, Congress lumped together 22 previously unconnected federal agencies under a new Cabinet secretary. That's a problem, not a solution. And while members of Congress routinely clamor for consolidating Homeland Security oversight in one committee, that seems unlikely: 108 congressional committees and subcommittees oversee the department's operations. If aggregating disparate fields of government made any sense in the first place, we long ago would have consolidated all Cabinet responsibilities under one person — the secretary of government.

Read the whole thing here.