It's Budget Monday

Yesterday was budget Monday. I'll be parsing the numbers over the upcoming month.

Department of Homeland Security gets an 8% increase, including a billion dollars for ... a fence in ... where else, Texas. I've started to wonder how much the DHS is turning into the Department of Whitehouse Pork, ever since Houston, TEXAS, made it to the Tier 1 of cities with critical infrastructure that international terrorists are after (I thought al-qa'ida were mostly after symbolic targets?).

Anyway, a new category in the GWOT, "dangerous people".

DHS Budget history.

(photo: Reuters/Jason Reed)

Update: Iraqi Police Readiness

Adding this to General Eaton's testimony (I don't recall him shining a spotlight on government contractors).

I was always one for spending money, even without the ordinary controls/oversight, in the hope that the tradeoff would be effectiveness or speed-on-the-ground.

However, some parts seem to have been just plain old fraud and incompetence, the till too tempting:

Reports Fault Oversight of Iraq Police Program
Millions Paid to Contractors Squandered on Unauthorized Work, Shoddy Facilities, U.S. Auditors Say
WaPo