$41 Billion, and Not a Penny of Foresight

Why is the New Orleans recovery going so badly? Just look at the DHS budget.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, Sept. 2, 2005, at 1:01 PM PT

As Tim Naftali wrote in Slate yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security just flunked its first test. The question now—to ensure that things go better next time—is: Why? Was it simply that the storm's magnitude would have overwhelmed even the best-laid plans? Or is there something about DHS—a conglomerate of 22 federal departments and agencies mushed together in the desperate wake of 9/11—that compounds the normal sluggishness of large bureaucracies?

To understand why DHS is underperforming on the Gulf Coast, and why it won't improve soon, the best place to start is how it spends its money. There is no clearer window on a bureaucracy's culture than its budget, so let's look inside the DHS's 100-page budget book for fiscal year 2006.