GAO reports are available to all, so are OPM reports. Federal budget is not secret either. Follow the trail and you'll see that DHS waste more than their 'official' budget is...
edited typo
So you don't work for any agency within the dept so how would you know what it's like at the operational level, and at operational level I mean the guys like me that are out there every day doing the actual work.
From an operational standpoint it was a great move. Past situation before the dept was created. We would board a vessel and conduct a routine inspection. Unless we had intel allready on hand regarding crewmembers we were in the dark. If we wanted info on a drew member or passenger that wasn't on the manifest it could take upwards of 2 days to several weeks to get information from Imigration, DEA, or anyone else. Current situation we can send a couple of messages, or pick up a phone and have information about anyone on the ship in less than 24 hours because all the info is internal to the dept. That is a huge improvment at the operational level. All those agencies now work for the same boss, using the same communications links, and networks, and the ability to pass time critical information has been increased by a huge margin.
That's not big government, that the government actually doing something that improves the ability of all those agencies to actually be able to do their jobs in a timely manner. You look at the GAO budgets. Yeah the funding has gone way up from where it was because all those agencies are having to upgrade all their equipment to operate together, and that cost money, but the end result is worth the cost at the operational level.