Your tax dollars (and my pesos) at work

Two wonky reports for those interested (via NarcoNews).  The FY2008 Supplemental Appropriations Spending Plan (the Plan Merida bucks) — at least the public parts — have been posted as a PDF file, and Narconews includes a translation from the 11 September Jornada article by Enrique Mendez and Roberto Garduño on the Mexican security budget (which, as I predicted, stints other government programs, like agriculture):

The Administration of Felipe Calderon proposed to the House of Representatives, a budget for security, armed forces and for the CISEN (National Security and Investigation Center) of 104 billion, 181 million MXP (Mexican pesos) (USD $10.418 billion). This budget is primarily assigned to the SSP (Mexican Federal Department of Public Security), which will have more input in the struggle against organized crime, as part of a strategy to “assure the viability of the State and of democracy”.

…

SSP will establish police stations throughout the country, with a budget of 1 billion pesos (USD $1 million) to “provide citizens with integral attention to prevention, investigation and persecution of crime” as well as to “offer a service of prompt attention crime related complaints, actions to prevent crime and efficient police deployment. This is given it will have personnel for analysis, technical services and investigations to disarticulate criminal organizations”.

I thought the strategy was to let the gangsters “disarticulate” each other… preferably at the neck.