The government fails, and it fails often. The latest incident is now a well-documented failure of the Secret Service to stop a fence-jumper armed with a knife from getting deep inside the White House: The intruder was able to get into the East Room of the White House, a floor below the first family’s residence, before he was stopped by an off-duty agent. The Secret Service has also repeatedly misled about the incident: It claimed the intruder was stopped in the first room he entered, and that he was unarmed.

This is not the first time the Secret Service is making the front page of our national newspapers in the last few years. The Wall Street Journal reminds us, for instance, of a number of failures over the last few years:

The revelations are the latest embarrassment for an agency that has suffered its share of black eyes. In 2012, the Secret Service removed 12 employees from duty after allegations they brought prostitutes back to their hotel rooms in Cartagena, Colombia, before a presidential trip.
In March, three agents were sent home from Amsterdam after allegedly drinking while preparing for the president’s arrival.
“I have deep concerns about leadership, protocol and training. The problems seem to be getting worse, not better,” Mr. Chaffetz said. “This is an agency that can never, ever make a mistake, ever. There are a lot of good men and women who serve but their leadership is failing.”

It seems everyone agrees that the agency is poorly managed — color me unsurprised, given the lack of incentives in government for good management. But this is nonetheless disturbing.

One thing is for sure: It can’t be blamed on a lack of resources for the Secret Service. Over at the Cato Institute, Chris Edwards has a good chart that looks at the Secret Service budget (the amount on the books, at least) since 1970. He find that the angecy’s budget “has doubled in real (inflation-adjusted) terms since 1998—from $0.9 billion to more than $1.8 billion.”

There was especially strong growth during the Bush years:

For those interested, here is a link to the Department of Homeland Security’s budget for FY2015. The Secret Service is housed there and the budget numbers are on page 87 of the documents. The agency’s 2015 budget request is $1.8 billion, and it employees 6,572 full-time employees or equivalents.