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TwitThisShortchanging the Likely Targets
Congress set this mess in motion when it decided to divvy up much of the homeland security money as if it were one more revenue sharing program. Forty percent of the funds for terrorism preparedness would be divided evenly among all 50 states. In 2003, according to a report by Cox's Homeland Security Committee, that formula mandated that each state receive at least $17.5 million.It's no coincidence that the plan, rushed through Congress as part of the Patriot Act in 2001, was shepherded along by a Senator from a small rural state -- Patrick Leahy of Vermont, then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. States like Vermont, with low populations, are the big winners. Wyoming, which accounts for .17 percent of the nation's population, came in first with $35.30 per capita in federal grants in 2003, according to an analysis by Veronique de Rugy, a scholar at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute. Coming in second was Leahy's Vermont, and other states in the top ten include Alaska, Montana and North and South Dakota. New York, already hit twice by terrorists, was third from the bottom, and California -- whose Los Angeles Airport was the target of a terror plot in 1999 -- was dead last, with $4.70 in funding per capita. Small wonder that Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer of New York, and Dianne Feinstein of California, have argued that their states are getting dangerously shortchanged.
They can point to experts who generally agree that terrorists are much more likely to target a highly populated area. Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic House member from Indiana who served as vice chair of the 9/11 Commission, says, "I would be perfectly comfortable making the argument that New York City ought to get more than Southern Indiana on a proportional basis, because that's where the threat is. [Terrorists] clearly intend to go after targets that would cause maximum casualties and great disruption to the American economy."
The report of Hamilton's 9/11 Commission concluded: "Homeland security assistance should be based strictly on an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities. Congress should not use this money as a pork barrel."
Easier said than done. Elected officials have no incentive to say that their state or town is not vulnerable to terrorism, notes de Rugy. "Basically, it's an entitlement to them," she says. "They want to keep this money flowing their way. The logic is that every state could potentially be at risk, so every state should get a minimum."
That argument leads to ludicrous purchases, even when the money is being spent, broadly, on security. Little Colchester, Vermont, spent $58,000 to buy a search-and-rescue vehicle capable of breaking through concrete to rescue victims in collapsed buildings. Big worries for a farming and recreational town with 18,000 residents and no structure taller than a five-story Hampton Inn. In rural Washington State, $63,000 was spent on a decontamination unit that ended up in a warehouse because there is no HAZMAT team to use it. North Pole, Alaska, with less than 2,000 people, received $557,400 to spend on rescue and communications equipment. And Grand Forks County, North Dakota, population 65,000, spent $1.5 million in federal money to buy decontamination tents, gear to find weapons of mass destruction, and more biochemical suits than the number of police officers available to wear them.
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