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Sense and security

The Senate's homeland security budget supports minimum grants for all states instead of spending more money where there is a higher risk of attack.

Senators have decided bringing home the bacon is more important than defending the nation against terrorist threats. The spending plan for homeland security adopted by the Senate last week includes dozens of provisions that undermine antiterrorism efforts. As the plan goes before House-Senate negotiations for final approval, Congress should strip the budget down to the basics and heed the 9/11 commission's advice: "Homeland security assistance should be based strictly on an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities."

In its current form, the $31.9-billion budget for homeland security includes a rigid formula that siphons money away from high-risk states to support minimum grants for all states. The Senate rejected a plan - supported by the Department of Homeland Security, the Bush administration and senators from high-risk states - that would have reserved almost 90 percent of the money for areas found to be most vulnerable.

Determined to protect their home turf, senators from small states rallied behind a plan that guarantees a significant amount of funding for all states, regardless of calculated threats. Politicians like the deal because it sends money back home and makes voters happy. But the plan should send chills down the spine of anyone interested in securing the nation. It provides rural states like Wyoming and North Dakota with money that should fund antiterrorism efforts in New York and California.

Congress needs to get its priorities straight. Its current actions are reckless and selfish.

Millions of dollars of antiterrorism funds were wasted after legislators blindly rushed to distribute grants after 9/11. They failed to set guidelines for spending at state and local levels, resulting in the use of "homeland security" dollars to support the basic needs of police, fire and medical workers. Local and state governments also did not spend a significant chunk of the federal aid. The national spending average was 44 percent last April, according to a report by the Washington Post. Almost four years after 9/11, we should know better.

But the Senate's most recent clash over funding for mass transit security underscores that legislators still don't get it. While the nation faces multiple risks, the country does not have enough resources to defend against every potential attack. Congress must allow terror analysts, not their political interests, determine how to best spend limited homeland security funds.

[Last modified July 15, 2005, 23:18:02]