I recently spent 90 interminable minutes waiting in line at the United States Customs and Border Protection facility between Canada I-15 and US I-87. Apparently that’s a typical wait! There were 10 stations available, but only four were staffed. Oh, there was a “NEXUS” station too, but that looked like it was used about once every five minutes.
Traffic was managed incredibly poorly, because people (assholes) would drive in the unmanned lanes and then cut in at the last minute.
What made it even more frustrating was the abundance of CBP officers waddling around in no apparent hurry. There was a gaggle of them standing on the lawn next to the stations, just shooting the breeze for about 20 minutes. No sense of urgency, no interest in doing a good job. Just collecting a paycheck and a fat pension.
Did I say “waddling?” Why yes…they were uniformly overweight.
This is a major port of entry from Canada to the United States. That these delays are accepted as a matter of course is an embarrassment. We spend $25 billion a year on this crap, and they can’t manage to staff a couple more kiosks on a busy day? This is exactly what our taxes are supposed to pay for!
At the risk of extrapolating wildly, this is indicative of the decay in government competence over the last generation. And let us be honest…it didn’t start at a high level to begin with.
But it also speaks to a shift in perspective on the part of government. No longer is there even lip service paid to the quaint idea that our government works for us. Now the overriding attitude is that we are at best inconveniences during the work day, and at worst we are toys to be played with…or tortured.
Sure, a long wait at the border is not the end of the world, but it was an inconvenience to many thousands of travelers, and commerce is certainly slowed by these sorts of delays.
I am sure that there are Powerpoint presentations galore floating between high-ranking officials at CBP about this issue, and absolutely nothing is being done about it, because there is no accountability. They have jobs for life, are insulated from market pressures, and undoubtedly express contempt for those citizens who have the temerity to complain.
This is the Deep StateTM. It’s here. It’s malign. And it isn’t going anywhere.
