Assessing the costs and benefits of United States homeland security spending

An assessment of increased United States federal homeland security expenditure since 2001 and expected lives saved as a result of such expenditure suggests that the annual cost ranges from $64 million to $600 million (or even more) per life saved, greatly in excess of the regulatory safety goal of $1-$10 million per life saved. As such, it clearly and dramatically fails a cost-benefit analysis. In addition, the opportunity cost of these expenditures, amounting to $32 billion per year, is considerable, and it is highly likely that far more lives would have been saved if the money (or even a portion of it) had been invested instead in a wide range of more cost-effective risk mitigation programs.