 |
| GOP Platform pork promoter Cong. John Mica |
Not only are they promoting pork for their own, but they're building it right into the Republican platform.
Even better, it's at the expense of our national security.
The Republican platform includes a plank promoting the pork of influential GOP Congressman John Mica, who's been trying to privatize the TSA for a while now on behalf of a corporate campaign contributor in his district.
Attacking federal workers is nothing new for the GOP, but they have yet to explain how a privatized TSA workforce will do anything other than shovel money into the campaign coffers of Congressman Mica and his well-to-do corporate constituent.
A lot of Americans are frustrated or fed up with the TSA policies, but none of those policies change if the TSA is privatized. If anything, the problem gets worse because instead of being (somewhat) accountable to the public via our elected representatives, under the Republican plan the TSA will only be accountable to its shareholders and business owners. And as bad as government can sometimes be, the private sector is usually worse (e.g., you can complain about Medicare problems to your congressman, who do you complain about Blue Cross to?)
Again, how does privatizing help address the problems that annoy Americans about the TSA? It doesn't. It simply helps Republican Congressman John Mica get pork for a constituent at the potential expense of our safety.
The platform calls for the privatization of airport security screening, a role now undertaken by the Transportation Security Administration.A massive bureaucracy that would only answers to a Congressman Mica is not very comforting. Cong. Mica apparently agrees with Mitt Romney that corporations are people too. Too bad Mica and Romney don't have the same respect for actual people.
The platform characterizes the TSA as a "massive bureaucracy" made up of employees "who seem to be accountable to no one for the way they treat travelers."
The agency, created in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has long drawn the ire of lawmakers, both for mismanagement of agency programs as well as the often inconvenient screening process.
Treat the Republican party platform as one big pork opportunity is no way to treat something as serious as national security. Then again, when were the Republicans ever serious about national security? Only one President actual caught Osama bin Laden - actually tried - and that's the Democratic President Barack Obama.
