New York Daily News - Bloomy: It's nuts!

Thursday June 22, 2006

From New York Daily News:

Bloomy: It's nuts!
BY MICHAEL McAULIFF and MICHAEL SAUL
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Thursday, June 22nd, 2006

WASHINGTON - Accusing the Department of Homeland Security of engaging in "dysfunctional bureaucratic logic," Mayor Bloomberg denounced the agency's decision to slash the city's anti-terror funds by 40% as "nonsensical" yesterday during testimony before Congress.

In a hearing room that contained a haunting photo of the World Trade Center burning on 9/11, Bloomberg blasted the department for increasing the number of high-risk cities from seven to 46 this year - while cutting New York's funds.

"Is this the spirit of 'high-threat' allocation? No," Bloomberg told the House Committee on Homeland Security. "Instead, it makes the program the kind of political pork barrel it was specifically designed to avoid. It's a typical example of say one thing for the press avail and do something quite different."

Bloomberg - along with Washington Mayor Anthony Williams and the top police officials from both cities - told lawmakers that the method for distributing these funds is broken.

Both mayors lambasted the department for its unwillingness to help the cities pay for day-to-day personnel expenses, with Bloomberg saying "old-fashioned boots on the ground" is the best defense against terror.

Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.), the committee's chairman, asked Homeland Security Undersecretary George Foresman if the department's grant reviewers were given any classified intelligence about threats New York may face.

Foresman replied, "I don't believe they were provided threat information," but he insisted that was not necessarily the reviewers' job.

Foresman praised Bloomberg and Williams for their efforts to protect their cities from terrorism, but he said: "The Department of Homeland Security must do the same for our entire nation."

King called the cuts "disgraceful" and "indefensible."

"It raises very, very real questions about the competency of this department in determining how it's going to protect America," he said.

King offered little hope yesterday that the department will reverse the decision, saying he's focusing his attention on finding other federal dollars that New York can use to combat terrorism.

"We're still working on that," he said.