It’s a start

I’ve often wondered if budget cuts would lead to less infringement upon our freedom. This is just a drop in the bucket and the effect will probably go completely unnoticed at our level. But it is a start:

The Transportation Security Administration is soon hoping to offer buyouts to about 3,000 administrative workers, one of dozens of federal agencies aiming to trim the payroll amid a budget crunch.

TSA is seeking authority from the Office of Personnel Management to offer buyouts to about 3,000 administrative and managerial workers based at its Northern Virginia headquarters and at regional offices nationwide, the agency said late Thursday.

Something that is more than a little telling about this organizations is the following from the same article:

The agency has offered voluntary early retirements to workers since December 2004 — about a year after the agency first opened.

It sounds to me like a major function of the agency is redistribution of wealth. When the budget crunch really hits I won’t have any probably advocating for the letting these guys and the politicians who enabled this sort of crap fend for themselves.

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3 thoughts on “It’s a start

  1. The TSA actually does exist to transfer wealth but in a non-obvious way. The TSA was created so the airlines wouldn’t get sued into bankruptcy the next time a terrorist takes out an airplane or uses one as a WMD. So the wealth transfer is from the taxpayers to the airlines.

    Think of that the next time an airline charges you a fee for that extra bag.

  2. I think Alan has it right. Further up the food chain, I think TSA protects reinsurance agencies too.

  3. I took note of the lack of protest by the airlines at the time, when a part of their operations was being nationalized. My recent post here touches on the general subject of business colluding with anti-business government for special relief from market forces (relief from liberty, really), though in this case it was a response to gigantic litigation settlements (business colluding with anti-business government for special relief from anti-business government, much like making a deal with the Mob for “protection”).

    This is the gig– Place enough onerous restrictions, requirements and legal liability on us long enough, and we’ll beg to be nationalized. It goes along with “Top Down, Bottom Up, Inside Out”. Or as I’ve put it for about 15 years; “Every little bit of socialism demands just a little bit more.”

    The answer of course is to keep government widely separated from business. We’re still going in the opposite direction though.

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