Funding Homeland Security

Tuesday, I made a post about how funding for Homeland Security is being distributed using a forumla that gives lower-population states disproportionately more money for security measures than states with large populations.  A story in the Washington Post today helps point out the practical impact this distribution formula is having:

Responding to the recently elevated national terror threat level, Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn deployed scores of police officers to secure Los Angeles International Airport, target of a foiled millennium terrorist bomb plot. But with heightened citywide security costing $1 million a week and a budget deficit expected to exceed $200 million, Hahn couldn't do it alone. He asked the state to send in the National Guard.

The state, however, was staggering under a deficit topping $30 billion. Already, Gov. Gray Davis was moving to raise taxes, lay off thousands of schoolteachers and cut half a million adults off Medicaid. Still, Davis sent 50 National Guardsmen to LAX. Chalk up $100,000 a week more to cut elsewhere.

California, of course, is not alone.

Governors and mayors said they are not skimping on public safety, but as a result, they are skimping on much else. "These responsibilities are unprecedented, and it's an extra cost burden when none of us can absorb it," said Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R). "If you put extra personnel on bridges, you're taking money from public schools or telling scholarship students they can't go to college or taking medicine from elderly people. We're beyond the point of inconveniencing people. We're close to hurting them."

Bush recently announced an additional $2 billion in funding for Homeland Security, of which $500 million is being set aside specifically for "enhanced wartime security costs" through June of this year, with $50 million of that earmarked for large metropolitan areas - an attempt by the Bush administration to answer concerns about large-population centers not getting adequate funding for their needs.  Fifty million, however, is what it would take the state of New York - including New York City - to pay for 4 weeks of increased security.

The article also offers more specific information on how much funding various states are getting, showing the disparity between the large- and small-population states:

Just how thorny was clear in the initial round of Homeland Security grants released this year -- about $600 million nationally. Despite a concentration of likely terror targets in population centers, smaller states received much more money per capita than large ones, with California and New York running last. California received $1.33 per person and New York $1.38, while Wyoming got $9.78, Vermont, $8.15 and Alaska, $7.97. The national average was $3.29. (The study was done by New York City and compared the largest states with the smallest; it did not include Maryland or Virginia.)

In other Homeland Security spending news, the Republicans today rejected an attempt by the Democrats to provide additional funding for security at ports.

As they have done for weeks, Democrats argued that security for U.S. airports, nuclear facilities and other domestic safety programs was being shortchanged. Among their amendments was one by Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) to add $1 billion to upgrade safety at U.S. ports, which was defeated by a near party-line vote of 52-47.

''We are in a crisis,'' Hollings said, arguing that the nation's ports are ''the most vulnerable targets that you could possibly imagine.''

The Senate bill contains $4.2 billion for the new Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard and state and local security and emergency agencies. Democrats wanted to boost that to $9 billion.

Somehow, seeing the Republicans refusing to provide additional funds to help secure our airports, shipping ports and nuclear facilities seems to undermind the claims that fighting the "War on Terror^TM" is a priority. It also leaves open the question as to why "preventing terrorism" is important enough for us to send our troops into Iraq, killing and injuring who knows how many American and UK soldiers, not to mention the untold casualties among the Iraqi civilians and military personnel, but it's not important enough to allocate additional funds for necessary security upgrades at some of our most vulnerable locations - or even to distribute money for security in such a way that the areas most as risk get the most money to work with.