Speaking of the "terrorism industrial complex"
By I know I’m late to the story, but according to ABC’s “The Blotter”:
New York has no national monuments or icons, according to the Department of Homeland Security form obtained by ABC News. That was a key factor used to determine that New York City should have its anti-terror funds slashed by 40 percent–from $207.5 million in 2005 to $124.4 million in 2006.
The formula did not consider as landmarks or icons: The Empire State Building, The United Nations, The Statue of Liberty and others found on several terror target hit lists. It also left off notable landmarks, such as the New York Public Library, Times Square, City Hall and at least three of the nation’s most renowned museums: The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan and The Museum of Natural History.
The form ignored that New York City is the capital of the world financial markets and merely stated the city had four significant bank assets. (via Political Wire)
Back when the Republicans introduced their poison pill into the act establishing the DHS, the one that stripped civil-service protections from its employees and thereby forced many Democrats who supported the creation of the Department to vote against it, a relative of mine pointed out that doing so not only provided Republicans with a way of smearing the Democrats as being “soft on terror” during the 2002 midterms… the act would turn the new DHS into a patronage mill for the administration.
Since then we’ve had ample indiciation of the administration’s desire to politicize the executive branch. We also have a pretty good idea what the erosion of executive-agency professionalism is doing to the workings of the federal government.
I have no direct evidence, of course, that this insane decision stemmed from the way the Bush administration structured the DHS, but it does provide further evidence that John Mueller is correct about at least one thing: the War on Terror continues to degenerate into another excuse for big pork. If he’s right, of course, New York is getting too much money as it is. But at least we ought to make some effort to distribute such money properly, no?
It would be really nice for a week to go by without additional proof that the Bush administration has given us the worst of both worlds: incompetent big government.