Homeland Insecurity

Your tax dollars are hard at work fighting terrorists... in all the wrong places.

The Security Fund Sweepstakes

If terrorists attack North Yarmouth, Maine, the tiny hamlet plans to be ready. With a population of just 3,200 and very few businesses -- not even a Starbucks or a McDonald's -- North Yarmouth can be tough to find on state maps. But that's not stopping its all-volunteer fire department from getting equipped in a big-city way. It's about to purchase a brand new, state-of-the art tanker truck that can hold enough water to douse a towering inferno, at a price tag of a quarter-million dollars. And by the way, you and I are providing the cash. Most of the funding for this truck comes from taxpayer money, courtesy of a $225,000 federal grant from the Department of Homeland Security.

Why does North Yarmouth need homeland security money? Deputy Fire Chief David Hyde explains that "if terrorists should tamper with the water supply and the pumping system should go down and we didn't have hydrants, we could take water from our local rivers and fill this truck." The next obvious question: What are the chances that Al Qaeda will target North Yarmouth? "I'd say very low," Hyde admits. But the federal money was there, he adds, and the firefighters had other needs, so they took it. "It would be foolish of us not to try," he says. "We saw others being successful at it, so we gave it a shot."

You can't define pork-barrel politics any better. Since 9/11, federal money for "first responders" like local police, fire and emergency personnel has totaled more than $12 billion -- and paid for lots of things that won't keep terrorists awake at night. While cities like New York, Washington and Los Angeles strain to shore up security at bridges, ports and buildings, remote areas facing far less risk are being treated like Fort Knox. It's the old political game of giving everyone a generous slice of the pie.

Many of those small communities never even had to demonstrate a security need. "It's as if they've won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes," says Rep. Chris Cox of California, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. "They have to find a way to spend the money."

That must be why one Texas town, according to a state audit, spent federal money to buy a trailer that's used to cart lawn mowers to "lawn mower drag races." Or why another town mentioned in the same audit was tickled pink to pour homeland security money into its "mushroom festival."

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