Mica Calls His Brainchild 'Fiasco,' Advocates Dismantling

In the wake of 9/11, there was an outcry for the US Congress to "do something." That's never a very good environment for creating laws that stand the test of time, and Representative John Mica, a Florida Republican, seems to wish he could get a mulligan on the creation of the Transportation Security Administration.

Mica, one of the authors of legislation that created TSA, tells Townhall.com he's disappointed at the bureaucracy and waste in the agency, and says it should have a maximum of 5,000 employees and focus on intelligence and monitoring threats. But despite the fact that TSA has grown to more than ten times that size, has a $9 billion annual budget, and is generally acknowledged to have a negative impact on the economy of the nation, that's not Mica's biggest gripe.

It's much more basic than that. "They’ve failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years. Everything they have done has been reactive. They take shoes off because of Richard Reid, passengers are patted down because of the diaper bomber, and you can’t pack liquids because the British uncovered a plot using liquids. It’s an agency that is always one step out of step."

Mica says he wants screening privatized, and that such a move could save taxpayers 40% of what they're spending now.

What is it that makes even veteran politicians think their new bureaucracy will turn out differently from every other bureacracy?

FMI: www.tsa.gov