President Bush recently suggested that the Pentagon should take over disaster relief efforts to avoid the “cluster f***” that was the response to Hurricane Katrina. I guess he got this idea while hanging out at NORCOM. Among all those screens and reports, he probably realized that, “Hey these guys know what they are doing.” Hell yeah they know what they are doing. So why don’t we saddle down an organization that has it’s act together with more unrelated responsibilites.

FEMA used to do a decent job before cronyism and lack of funding messed it up. Based on this same logic, we should continue to move away state and local responsibilites to the federal government in those cases where the federal government is responsible in the case of a national crisis. To this end, I propose we put the education department under the military. Also, driver’s licenses and testing should be done by the Pentagon. After all, the interstate system does run across states and it connects local roads to federal roads.

Hopefully, when this comes to Congress they will not try to pass the disaster relief buck to an already stretched thin military, but will solve the underlying issues. Homeland Security must fulfill its mission of coordinating information and capabilities to protect the lives and security of U.S. citizens. Whether the attack be by terrorists, weather, disease, or other threats, we need to have coordinated preparation and response. Not the finger pointing and buck-passing that has occurred as of late.

I’m allowing comments on this post for the next week or so.