George McGovern calls for eliminating TSA, DHS

by Lisa Simeone on November 18, 2011

George McGovern, former U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate, is doing what few in Congress (besides Ron Paul) are willing to do:  calling for the elimination of the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

As The Hill reports, McGovern terms airport security procedures “silliness” and “a needless hassle.”

He quotes a figure of $7 billion a year to fund the TSA.  Earlier this year, Janet Napolitano, head of DHS, which oversees the agency, asked for $8.1 billion for Fiscal 2012, which would go towards hiring another 3,270 employees, for a grand total of close to 60,000 TSA employees, most of them screeners.  The budget of DHS is even larger — $42 billion, according to McGovern, with 200,000 employees.

With the economy in the doldrums and ordinary Americans being told they must face “austerity,” one wonders how the government can justify this extraordinary expenditure, especially when the result is to bully and harass those same citizens.

McGovern points out that the creation of DHS was a reaction, if not overreaction, to 9/11 and that the time has come for the country to stop making policy based on fear.

Tagged as: DHS, Eliminate, George McGovern, TSA

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