Funding on the Fly

he city of Buffalo, N.Y., might reasonably be considered critical territory in the war on terrorism. Situated on Lake Erie and the Niagara River, which together form a long stretch of the border between the United States and Canada, the city is a major conduit for international trade and an economic hub for the northeastern United States. If Buffalo's financial and strategic importance eluded federal officials after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, that changed a year later when the FBI arrested six Americans purportedly belonging to an al Qaeda terrorist cell operating in the city's tight-knit Yemeni community in the southern suburb of Lackawanna.

Given the city's strategic value and vulnerability to terrorist activity, you might think Buffalo would rank high on the list of cities getting federal funding for the war on terrorism. In fact, like most cities across the country, Buffalo has received no federal money to help it meet new security requirements. City officials say they have spent $1.7 million beefing up security at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, protecting the city's water system, and responding to anthrax scares. To pay for those things, city managers had to eliminate 97 positions in the police department and close two fire companies.

What's more, in March, Mayor Anthony Masiello said he expected the city's financial burden to grow substantially because as many as 80 police officers and firefighters, who also are military reservists, were subject to call-up for operations related to Iraq. Should they be deployed, not only would the city have to continue to pick up part of their salaries, it would incur substantial overtime costs for the remaining personnel.

Buffalo is not alone. A January survey of cities across the state conducted by the staff of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., found that 70 percent had not received any federal funding since Sept. 11, 2001. Many, including New York City, are facing such severe budget shortfalls that they are being forced to cut the ranks of the very departments-fire, police and emergency services-that would most certainly be needed to respond to future attacks. And most experts, including Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, believe such attacks are inevitable.

In a January speech at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, Clinton blasted the Bush administration for neglecting the needs of those people most likely to be first on the scene of a terrorist attack: "Would we dare do this to our military forces overseas? Would we dare pull Army and Navy officers out of duty in the Persian Gulf and force them into retirement? Would we strip the Marines or the Air Force of planes or equipment that they need to confront al Qaeda or Iraq? Of course not; and yet, that is precisely what will be happening to the men and women and resources we need here at the front lines of our homeland defense," Clinton said.

"The truth is we are not prepared, we are not supporting our first responders, and our approach to securing our nation is haphazard at best," Clinton said. It's not surprising that a Democrat from the state hardest hit by terrorism would criticize a Republican administration for not coming up with enough resources for state and local officials. But plenty of Republican members of Congress agree with Clinton, although not always publicly. As cities and counties across the country continue to absorb the costs of increased security, often in response to federal warnings or unfunded federal mandates, and as more and more of their front-line workers report for military duty in the largest reserve forces call-up for active duty since the 1991 Persian Gulf war, lawmakers worry increasingly about the security burdens facing local communities.

How did this happen? Since September 2001, President Bush, administration officials and members of Congress from both parties repeatedly have stressed the importance of boosting the capabilities of local police, fire and emergency response officials. In February 2002, the White House requested that Congress provide $3.5 billion for training and equipment for first responders in 2003, a tenfold increase over previous budget requests.

Depending on how you define homeland security, Congress and the White House provided at least $75 billion in new homeland security spending in the year after the terrorist attacks. To understand where that money went, and why so little of it ended up in the hands of first responders, is to delve into the messy world of politics, pork and budget rhetoric. Moreover, the windfall in security spending may be over, leaving many on the home front of the war on terrorism without funds to pay for critical needs.

RHETORIC AND REALITY

Days after terrorists commandeered four fuel-laden airplanes and sent them careening into the World Trade Center's twin towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, the White House and both houses of Congress worked fervently across party lines to a degree unprecedented in recent history. Congress authorized, and the president signed into law, the 2001 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Recovery From and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States. The law provided $20 billion in emergency funding, and was followed by another $20 billion in emergency spending four months later. In the meantime, Congress added more than $700 million to 13 regular 2002 appropriations bills then being considered. Other laws were passed to help the beleaguered airline industry and provide tax incentives for certain parts of New York City.

In February 2002, President Bush submitted his 2003 budget request, which included the $3.5 billion in funding to first responders. Then last summer, while most of the president's request was still being vetted, Congress and the White House authorized another $20 billion in emergency spending related to terrorism. But by then, bipartisanship was fraying. Included in the 2002 emergency spending bill was a contingency package of more than $5 billion-half of which was designated for first responders, half for other, nonsecurity programs, including a new storage facility for the Smithsonian Institution. The contingency package was such that President Bush had to spend everything, or nothing. He chose to spend nothing, charging Democrats with loading up the bill with pork.

Still, that left about $75 billion in extra spending on homeland security in the 12 months following the terrorist attacks. Where did it go? According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, nearly half-$30 billion-went to the Defense Department to conduct military operations overseas and to improve physical security at military bases and public buildings. About $11 billion went to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for disaster recovery operations, primarily in New York City. Another $11 billion went to compensation payments to victims and their families and financial assistance to air carriers. So nearly three-quarters of the money the federal government invested in homeland security in the 12 months after the terrorist attacks went to the Defense Department for military operations overseas and to communities and businesses at home recovering from the attacks.

Spending on homeland security isn't just a post-Sept. 11 phenomenon, although terming it "homeland security" is new. For years, federal agencies have run programs to fight terrorism and respond to attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. Funding for such programs increased steadily through the 1990s as various national security studies pointed to a growing threat of terrorism. David Isenberg, an analyst at the Center for Defense Information, a Washington think tank, says appropriations for programs aimed at combating terrorism and protecting critical infrastructure throughout the federal government rose from $7.2 billion in 1998 to $12 billion in 2001, before the Sept. 11 attacks. Isenberg's calculations, in his November 2002 report "Less Talk, More Walk: Strengthening Homeland Security Now," include intelligence agencies and the departments of Defense, State, Justice, Energy, Treasury, Health and Human Services, and Transportation.

Everyone agrees funding for homeland security has increased dramatically since Sept. 11, but quantifying that increase is another matter. National security analyst Frank Hoffman, a former top aide to the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, chaired by former Sens. Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, says the nature of the federal budget is such that "You can come up with almost any number you want, depending on how you define homeland security." For example, Hoffman considers spending on missile defense to be homeland security funding, while other analysts do not.

Steven Kosiak, director of budget studies at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, estimates that since the terrorist attacks, federal funding related to defense, homeland security and combating terrorism will have exceeded projected spending by $145 billion to $160 billion for fiscal 2001 through 2003. "If policy-makers are to effectively determine how much funding needs to be provided for homeland security and combating terrorism in the future, the administration will have to begin providing substantially more detailed, comprehensive, and clear data and cost estimates concerning these missions than it has to date," Kosiak wrote in "Funding for Defense, Homeland Security and Combating Terrorism Since 9-11: Where Has All the Money Gone?" a paper published Jan. 29.

Hoffman contends that the combination of current spending and the amount proposed by the Bush administration for 2004 is far too little for programs expected to secure U.S. borders and reduce the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to terrorist attack. "Arguably, border and maritime security mechanisms should have first priority on the nation's treasure since they promote prevention and our economic strength and prosperity," he says. Border security funding remains flat, even though agencies responsible for securing the border-primarily Customs, the Coast Guard and the Border Patrol-now have significantly more to do. Agencies now in the Homeland Security Department received more money for 2003, especially the Coast Guard, which has seen a 10 percent increase in funding since the Sept. 11 attacks. But when you factor in inflation, pay raises and higher operating costs, the agencies have less and less buying power, Hoffman says.

"Many potential investments in maritime, container inspection and port security are unfunded or underfunded," he adds. "Presidential commissions and industry experts have agreed that securing the country's major ports could cost from $10 million to $50 million each, for a total of $2.2 billion. Congress has put up just over $300 million to date, which will only cover assessments and planning efforts, and little security enhancement." Additionally, security mandates in the 2002 Maritime and Transportation Security Act are largely unfunded, mainly because of disagreement over which agency is in charge at ports that affect many users and many government organizations. "To some degree, the administration's approach to the [Homeland Security Department] is to use it as a Potemkin village," Hoffman says, referring to the fake villages built in 1787 by Russian field marshal Count Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin in an attempt to impress his ruler and lover, Catherine the Great.

SHELL GAME

The funding situation for border management programs may not improve much any time soon, especially since the 2004 budget proposed by the White House is essentially flat for the Homeland Security Department. But the shortfalls in funding for first responders may be harder to ignore on Capitol Hill. Less than a week after 22 federal agencies joined forces to staff the new department on March 1, Secretary Tom Ridge acknowledged at a meeting of the National Association of Counties that federal funding for local police, fire and emergency responders was substantially less than the White House initially had promised. The 2003 spending bill approved by Congress and signed into law by Bush in late February, five months into the fiscal year, included $3.5 billion for first responders, but much of that money merely had been shifted from other accounts serving first responders.

For example, the administration, in its 2003 budget request, had cut the Community Oriented Policing Services program and block grants to cities for law enforcement and firefighting, in order to fund new homeland security programs. Congress restored some funding to those programs before passing the fiscal 2003 omnibus appropriations bill, which included funding for homeland security. By the time the bill got to President Bush and he finally signed it into law Feb. 28, it contained just $1.2 billion in new spending for first responders-far less than the $3.5 billion so frequently cited. Bush stunned Republican legislators when he publicly criticized Congress for failing to fully fund his request. Says one Republican House staff member: "The administration knew exactly what was happening. If they had a problem with the funding, they could have done something about it."

Sensing a political opportunity, members of both parties are proposing additional emergency funding for first responders. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, oversees homeland security as chairwoman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Before Bush even had signed the 2003 spending bill, Collins announced plans to introduce legislation to provide $4 billion in grants to cities for first responders. Two days later, Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer from California and Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton of New York proposed a similar $5 billion plan. In the House, Rep. Jane Harmon, D-Calif., proposed a $7 billion emergency supplemental grant program for first responders. In early March, Sens. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., introduced the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Act,which would provide more than $7.5 billion in grants over seven years to increase the number of firefighters nationwide. While the outlook for any of these proposals is impossible to judge, pressure on the White House, especially from Democrats, to boost funding for emergency responders likely will continue.

Coming up with additional funds for first responders is likely to prove easier than reaching agreement on how to spend the money. Some lawmakers, including Clinton, believe the Homeland Security Department should make grants directly available to cities. Other lawmakers and the White House believe states should receive funding and distribute it to cities and counties based on regional needs. What few are willing to admit is that no matter how much funding is eventually agreed upon, it won't be enough to cover every city and county in the nation. At some point, Congress and the administration must make politically difficult choices about how to administer funding in a way that most enhances national security, not just political security.

More troubling to Hoffman than the lack of funding for first responders is Congress' and the Bush administration's failure to grasp that the requirements for a war on terrorism are unlike previous national security challenges. "We're still continuing to spend a far greater percentage of our resources on conventional security," he says, estimating that an amount equal to about 4 percent of the Gross Domestic Product is spent on conventional defense programs, while 0.4 percent of GDP is being spent on domestic security.

"Given the sorts of unconventional threats we face in the 21st century, it is difficult to conclude that a 10-to-1 ratio between traditional military spending and homeland security is the right mix," Hoffman says. "A 10 percent increase in homeland security funding, largely devoted to border security modernization, is neces-sary to correct a decade of neglect. Because of the resource shortfall relative to where we need to be, this remains the most severe threat to homeland security."

Most Americans probably are less concerned with funding ratios than they are with their own perception of security. And that may turn out to be the biggest problem for administration officials and members of Congress. If a March 4 editorial in The Buffalo News is any indication, Americans are indeed concerned: "What are Americans to think when the government recommended duct tape as a primary defense against terrorism at the same time it was delaying needed funding for the first- responders who will meet any terrorist emergency. . . . The president ought to be more cognizant of the risk he takes with his credibility when he tells the American people that this administration can simultaneously cut taxes deeply, spend mightily on homeland security and the military, fund a prescription insurance program under Medicare and pay tens of billions for a war in Iraq-all without doing any damage to the economy. In short, that we can have both guns and butter. And duct tape."