From NY Post:

D.C.'S STUPID SCROOGES SLASH NYC TERROR AID AND SPLURGE ON THE STICKS

By GEOFF EARLE Post Correspondent

June 1, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - Less than five years after the murder of 2,749 people in the Twin Towers on 9/11, the feds yesterday shockingly slashed anti-terror funds needed to protect New York City against future attacks.

The Homeland Security Department announced it was hacking funds distributed to the city by 40 percent compared with last year, while pouring hundreds of millions into unlikely terror targets like Kentucky and Wyoming.

The shocking stinginess from Washington comes just one week after a Pakistani national was convicted of a plot to blow up the

New York City will get its vital anti-terror funding chain-sawed from $208 million this year to $124 million next year - even though security experts agree it is vastly more threatened than any other city in the country.

The unexpected move set New York lawmakers in both parties fuming - especially since Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, a native of the region, vowed to dole out money based on risk.

Two cities in Chertoff's home state, New Jersey, made out like bandits - Jersey City and Newark will receive a total of $34.3 million, a 79 percent increase from the previous year.

"As far as I'm concerned, the Department of Homeland Security and the administration have declared war on New York," said Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

"It's a knife in the back to New York and I'm going to do everything I can to make them very sorry they made this decision."

King said he would launch "rigorous investigations" of the Homeland Security Department - including a $21 million DHS contract with a Virginia limousine service accused of arranging hotel trysts between lawmakers and prostitutes.

"They have cut $80 million in funding to New York City," King said. "Meanwhile, they gave a $21 million limousine contract to the company that was driving pimps and prostitutes around."

Sen. Charles Schumer had a more personal message for President Bush.

"I don't think the president should come back to New York and stand in solidarity with us without changing this formula," said Schumer (D-N.Y.).

"This is unfair. This is wrong. This is an outrage. This is basically abandoning New York."

Even though the feds had less money to hand out this year because of spending cuts, New York's massive drop was far out of proportion to the overall reduction.

In fact, New York City absorbed more than half of the nationwide cut of $119 million in money for urban areas. The city reduction amounted to $66 million below the prior year.

Federal officials said they based the new funding on a "two-by-two matrix" based on "risk" and "effectiveness" - but offered no specific justification for why New York's share plummeted.

"We have to look at the risk of New York City in relation to the rest of the country as well," said Tracy Henke, a DHS assistant secretary. "You're only as strong as your weakest link."

New York leaders weren't buying it.

"There's no question, they should have given us a lot more," said Mayor Bloomberg.

"When you stop a terrorist, they have a map of New York City in their pocket. They don't have a map of any of the other 46 places" that got money yesterday from the feds.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said city funding cuts and a big cut for Buffalo "demonstrates a pre-9/11 mentality that we should not tolerate" and called for Senate hearings on the issue.

"There's something seriously flawed with a process that results in a 40 percent cut to the city highest on the terrorists' target list," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

"We lost almost 3,000 people that day," said Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), who held a press conference with Rep. Vito Fossella (R-S.I.) at Ground Zero. "Yet Washington is blind to what happened."

While New York got more than any other city - $124 million - it has twice been hit by al Qaeda attacks, and major plots have been uncovered for attacks on the Brooklyn Bridge, tunnels, Wall Street, and numerous other targets.

Even as New York braced for massive cuts, several small-city mayors were poised to bask in a security bonanza. Seven cities that got big increases have populations smaller than Staten Island.

Louisville, Ky. - home to Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), who chairs a powerful Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee - got almost $9 million.

Memphis, in the home state of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), got $4 million.

"Political considerations played no part in the allocation process - none whatsoever," said George Foresman, DHS undersecretary for preparedness.

But security experts were at a loss to explain the funding decisions.

"Omaha is not target No. 1 for Osama bin Laden - it's New York. What is the administration thinking?" asked Scott Bates of the Center for National Policy.

Of the $1.7 billion in security funds being awarded, $1.3 billion goes out based on risk. Another $400 million goes to states by a formula that guarantees something even to states with tiny populations like Idaho and Wyoming.

The feds say funds were awarded through a secret peer-reviewed process. But each peer group of five to seven people included at least one rural or small-state representative - giving small towns an edge.

DHS officials hinted that New York's paperwork wasn't up to par. That led King to respond: "What they're trying to do is take a cheap shot here by saying the application wasn't filled out right. That can result in thousands of people being killed."

Of the 46 cities that got special grants, New York City ranks 23rd per capita, getting $16 per person.

But residents of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., got $67 per person, and residents of Atlanta got $45.

Additional reporting by Stephanie Gaskell, Murray Weiss and Tom Topousis