I have struggled with writing this column lately. Every time I have settled on something I want to say, a national event has dumped some cold water on my tentative muse.
Like most Americans, I find the swirl of daily calamitous economic, political and news in general, depressing and intimidating.
I also believe there is a meaner dimension to the streets brought on by the daily onslaught of bad news we endure. When that anxiety is combined with the seemingly clumsy attempt of government to deal with these things it does not leave one confident, to say the least.
I am deeply concerned about the ability of Federal law enforcement to meet the public’s expectations to reign in the rogue financial shenanigans that brought us to this economic quagmire.
How can we broach universal healthcare when we continually struggle with the resources necessary to reign in the fraud, waste and abuse in our existing social insurance delivery systems, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security Disability Insurance?
The oversight mission over the stimulus funding given to the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board is staggeringly complex and important.
Yet there can be no compromise in our existing efforts to keep us safe from the unabated terrorist threat. To top it off, we have the boil over of drug war violence on the Mexican border that needs immediate int
ervention.
Where are the resources for all of this? There is no finger-snap solution to the fact that Federal law enforcement has significantly too much mission to address.
Add to this conundrum the increasing public violence of the past several weeks with the deaths of local law enforcement officers and you understand that this mission strain is a very serious concern.
The financial downturn with falling tax revenues is directly reducing the capacity of local law enforcement to deal with these strains. What help can they receive from Federal law enforcement whose own resources are committed to other emergencies?
We need to be aware of these demands and strains and understand that we have to push back and demand the appropriate resources to help the over-burdened Federal law enforcement agencies address these problems and get the job done.
All existing missions need to be reassessed, reprioritized, and in some instances set aside.
On April 19, in my native Massachusetts, there is the annual celebration of the original Patriot’s Day (before it was recast by President Bush after 9/11/01) saluting the brave Minutemen who stood, as Emerson said, “on that rude bridge that arched the flood”, in Concord in 1775 and confronted their exigent furies embodied by King George’s soldiers.
Those patriots found their priorities that fateful day by mustering, setting aside their quotidian concerns,
and arguably focusing on what was important.
Our Federal leaders and law enforcement agencies need to borrow from this historical motivation, and do much the same, make the hard choices and get it done.
(Jim Huse is the CEO of IntegriGuard, LLC, a program integrity, payment accuracy company in Omaha, NE. You can learn more about him and his company at www.integriguard.org).
