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August 03, 2010
For Those Who Like Out-of-Control Big Government -- A Shining Example of Statist Spending!
Weekly Standard Editor Andrew Ferguson takes a look at American voters' confusing on-again, off-again love affair with statism: A paradoxical people, these Americans: eager to have an incompetent government that they don't trust do more of the things that they don't want it to do.That's not meant to be a comprehensive analysis of Ferguson's piece, and I suggest reading the whole thing. But as I read it, the more I thought about the tension between the anti-statists (almost invariably libertarians and small government conservatives) and the big government conservatives, the more I thought about one appalling example I stumbled onto yesterday. Drug War Spending. At the end of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the United States was spending a mere $66 million in the battle against illegal drugs. Four years later, at the end of Nixon's first term, the War on Drugs cost $796 million. By 2000, President Clinton and a Republican Congress had approved $19.2 billion for the drug war.OK, I lived through the '60s when LBJ was president and I remember Nixon ramping up the drug war. Ever since, it has been ramped up, and ramped up, and ramped up. Yet I see very little difference in the number of people using drugs; now as then, some people use them, others don't. I do remember that in those days you could go to a doctor and get drugs; uppers and downers were omnipresent; even opiate pain killers required only a simple prescription. That was before the federal DEA-monitored system of "triplicate" prescription forms which most doctors are terrified to write, and I am sure federal harassment of doctors will get worse. So, while in the old days there used to be an officially-tolerated legitimate medical system of supply for drugs, today adults who want uppers, downers, and even pain killers have to look for them on the street. To that extent, the drug war has "worked." Also, we now have SWAT Teams in nearly every city, ready to bash in doors and shoot dogs and citizens in their search for drugs. Back in the old days, there were "vice squads" -- and they had to knock on the door like Joe Friday. This gave users time to flush their stash, and we can't have that, can we? Now, we target them military style, with lightning speed, with SWAT Team firing flash-bang grenades. So while plenty of people still use drugs, they've been pushed further and further into the criminal fringes, as police state tactics have "improved." I realize that many conservatives think this is all hunky dory, and that it represents, um, "progress." But let's say you're one of those who likes the Drug War. How much do you think we should pay for it? According to the War On Drugs Clock, so far this year, the federal government has spent over $11 billion on the drug war, while the states have spent over $15 billion. Are are better off now than we were when we spent only $66 million a year? I don't think so, and I think what has happened is that the drug bureaucracy has simply been running amok for decades, because it has never been challenged in any major way by either party (neither of which wants to be seen as "soft on drugs"). To be honest, had the drug war not been ramped up, I realize that we would have to adjust for inflation. So to be fair I decided to use the inflation calculator here. That $66 million in 1968 dollars would be $402,517,395.96 in 2009. That is less than half a billion dollars. So how do we get from that figure to $20 billion? By my calculations, that's an adjusted-for-inflation increase of over 4000%. Is it worth it? Putting aside the rightness or wrongness (or constitutionality) of federal criminalization of substances, can anyone explain how? posted by Eric on 08.03.10 at 09:36 AM
Comments
The statists never learn.. Sailingbum · August 3, 2010 10:32 AM A former police Detective with whom I correspond thinks the Drug War has 5 years more to run. I agree with him. Government would like to increase revenue and decease costs. What better way than to turn crime into sin and tax it accordingly? What does that mean for me? Keep writing more articles on the waste and corruption. And I must say Eric that you have written some excellent posts on the subject of late. M. Simon · August 3, 2010 12:57 PM ThomasD says: Thinking about all of it makes me half-surprised the dollar figures aren't bigger... A lot of it has to do with accounting. Back when Mayor Daley (the Younger) made a big mistake and told the truth publicly he said that 85% of the crime in Chicago was prohibition related. A Police Chief from Conn. made a similar remark some years later. Let us be generous and say we could cut the cost of law enforcement in half..... I doubt that was accounted for. M. Simon · August 3, 2010 01:04 PM The Wars on Vice have been and remain a national disgrace to a supposedly free country. Brett · August 4, 2010 07:41 AM Post a comment
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I have to assume much of it is the new and improved version of the gold-plated Air Force toilet seat we use to hear so much about.
But also think about every police force in the USA - how much bigger and better equipped are they compared to just 20 years ago? Today it seems like every squad car is now more technologically advanced than the space shuttle ever was, and every podunk has a fully staffed and fully equipped SWAT team, if not myriad other types of special response/tactical outfits with all the armamanets and techno-gadgetry to go along with the l33t acronyms.
Sure some of this has been funded via the war on terror, but much of it has come by way of easy money 'marked' as part of the drug war. Nobody wants to be seen as vetoing or voting against the drug war. Maybe some of it would have been spent anyway, but perhaps some of it would not, and police forces would have learned to get by with less.
And certainly a chunk of that figure is the growth of the more 'compassionate' end of the industry, where tons of money are spent on rehab and reduction efforts - for every black clad SWAT ninja there must be half a dozen counselors, addiction specialists, and parole officers.
Thinking about all of it makes me half-surprised the dollar figures aren't bigger...