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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (89345)	4/3/2003 8:01:25 AM
From: Poet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Thought I'd post this before you did <g>. It speaks to some of the Dowd commentary we were discussing the other day: April 3, 2003 From the House, a Pulse For those who were wondering whether Congress heard New York City's pleas for help in the fight against terror, the House of Representatives gave a promising answer this week. Its Republican-controlled appropriations panel voted to distribute $700 million to New York, Washington and other densely populated, vulnerable localities across the nation. While the measure does not include new money — it mostly reassigns funds that had been targeted to protect critical structures like bridges, tunnels and landmarks — it signals that at least some on Capitol Hill are opening their eyes to the enormous challenges that cash-strapped cities and states face in providing domestic defense. Already burdened with multibillion-dollar budget gaps, New York City's bills for extra security are mounting weekly by $5 million for police overtime alone. By all rights, those tabs should be federal, not local. So it was dumbfounding that President Bush would have given the entire state of New York only about $32 million. Clearly frustrated, Mayor Michael Bloomberg lobbied hard against the stingy White House plan. Gov. George Pataki pressed for relief, too, but we hope he understands that this aid is intended to help the city cope with its huge security costs, not to ease Albany's budget problems. The House committee's plan would give New York as much as $200 million — still not nearly enough. Leaders for the Republican majority in the Senate are so far resisting efforts by Democratic senators to add more money for homeland security to the $80 billion supplemental war bill. Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton of New York, along with Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, want to give $1 billion to high-threat areas and $3 billion to the police, firefighters and other emergency responders. Their proposal recognizes a harsh truth heralded by Sept. 11: America now needs extraordinary protection, and people are relying on the federal government to provide it. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company \| Privacy Policy