Break-ins were rising long before any monetary problems erupted. The sheer volume of materials stolen from the average home requires some pretty serious logistics today. Ripping off a 52" LCD isn't going to be the traditional one-man job of years past. With a crew, everything gets divided up, so they need to be busier than ever to keep themselves in the mode that they are accustomed to.
Bank robberies are also a relatively safe occupation. It seems that the effort put forth by banks in the past, to their customers, is today reserved for the man with a note. Robberies are to be met with meek obedience in virtually every business today, insuring a burgeoning armed robbery, or smash and grab, industry. Unless, and until, there is a change on a large scale, why wouldn't these avenues be used by the maturing criminal crowd?
The 20,000 troops are to be used to organize, instruct, and set-up response groups for WMD events. 20,000 soldiers aren't going to be capable of exerting much in the way of national control, as that's 400 men per state. The military, however, is going to be used in the case of a WMD. There's no avoiding it in a reasonably inexpensive manner. Consider. FEMA, by it's Charter, is to be activated after a request by a governor of a state declared a Disaster. It has, again by it's Charter, 72 hours to arrive on the scene. It has VERY FEW employees, and virtually NO materials. It depends on local resources, and volunteer man-power from across the country. They also require local resources. FEMA is a MANAGEMENT group, and is designed to co-ordinate resources. They use the volunteer groups to purchase, operate, and resolve the problems.
In the case of a WMD, local resources may or may not be available. Local man-power may also be compromised. The need for swift, and decisive, action will pre-empt a 72 hour window. Now, where is that going to come from? Who else has the man-power, equipment, and logistics to respond under those circumstances? In the case of nuclear WMD, local electronics will be fried, including all communications and vehicular abilities. Who else has shielded equipment?
If the WMD is chemical, especially persistent agents, who else has the equipment on a scale large enough to actually do anything? In the event of a Biological WMD, the number of medical personnel required will overwhelm any other source. Any other group going to step forward with the resources to quarantine an entire metropolitan area? I don't think so.
Consider that a pair of aerosol cans worth of weaponized HN51 virus, in a single pair of rest rooms in a major airport, would spread the disease throughout the WORLD in short order. Got any other coherent force large enough to control such a process?
Do we even WANT a civilian force large enough to respond? It would have to be huge, with pre-positioned stock-piles, and paid for their skills. These people would train and prepare until a disaster occurred, at a massive cost to the tax-payers. Believe me, they would have little time for anything else, as the volume of information is vast, and the skills are perishable unless practiced often. They will also require dedicated transport, communications, and logistics, again very expensive for the amount of use. :thumbsup: