Headline writers for the New York tabloids certainly have a memorable way with words. Denizens of Gotham are unlikely ever to forget the Daily News shouter in October of 1975: “Ford to city: Drop dead”
That proclamation concerned President Gerald Ford?s turndown of New York?s appeal for a federal bailout in the severe fiscal crisis it was then suffering.
Now the rival New York Post has come up with a screamer of its own: “Terror? What terror?”
On this one, the headline writer added, in smaller type, this explainer: “Feds slash our funds to boost hicks in sticks.”
The reference is to the news that the Department of Homeland Security, in its latest allocation of anti-terrorism funds, has cut the amounts going to New York and Washington ? the two cities hit by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by hijacked planes ? by a whopping 40 percent.
The government explanation is that the two cities are now rated among the lowest quarter of potential target areas in the country. Why? Perhaps because they?ve already had their turn at being whacked?
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, still reeling from charges of too-little, too-late in response to Hurricane Katrina, offered on PBS?s “Newshour” one explanation for the reduced New York and Washington allocations ? that they?d already done such a good job providing security against possible future targets.
“We?ve invested over half a billion dollars in New York,” the secretary said, “… more than double than any other city in the country … . As we fortify New York, we?ll begin to spread the money to other places … . Now we can afford to look to some communities that need some additional help.”
But that?s part of the cause for all the uproar. Although all the federal grants are supposed to be “risk-based,” Chertoff acknowledged agreement with criticism of an approach wherein money is doled out “on a very rigid formula all across the country, with a certain percentage to each state.”
That was a polite way of confirming that the grant program is riddled with congressional pork. Vice President Dick Cheney?s home state of Wyoming, not a conspicuous target for terrorism, is getting more security funds, for example, than the already victimized District of Columbia (technically the Pentagon is across the Potomac in Arlington, Va.).
Asked whether that was “a pure pork decision,” Chertoff lamely replied: “I?ll let you characterize it as pork or not … . That was based on their [Congress?s] view that every state ought to have a little bit of money guaranteed.”
The secretary said his department had supported eliminating or reducing the state minimums, which bring money to such obvious magnets for terrorism as North and South Dakota and Utah, but “that was not successful in Congress.” Imagine that.
Chertoff expressed distress at threats from some members of Congress from New York and elsewhere who have voiced outrage at the latest grant allocations. “If the way we deal with it is by getting angry or by trying to exert political pressure,” he said, “I think we?re doing a disservice to the American people.” This after having admitted that political pressure had produced the slice-for-every-state policy.
New York congressmen voiced particular ire that such national treasures as the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, the Empire State Building and other large banking and business structures similar to the World Trade Center?s Twin Towers didn?t appear listed as high-risk targets for terrorist attacks. A department spokesman explained, however, that they were covered in state allocations, not as city properties.
In fairness, there is some validity in Chertoff?s argument that so much security money has already been poured into New York City that the department can turn to other potential targets. But terrorism to date has been largely focused on large-population centers around the world, not the likes of Montana.
In this business-as-usual war on terrorismas conducted by the Bush administration, there?s no sensible reason for giving millions of dollars to, in the New York Post?s words, “hicks in the sticks,” when crying urban needs, such as upgrading communications among first responders to attacks, continue to go unmet.
Jules Witcover, a Baltimore Examiner columnist, is syndicated by Tribune Media Services. He has covered national affairs from Washington for more than 50 years and is the author of 11 books, and co-author of five others, on American politics and history.
