Democrats focus on security shortfalls
WASHINGTON -- Often sidelined on security issues by the Republican majority in the past two years, congressional Democrats are moving to claim the center on homeland defense in the 2004 election by holding up the needs of what they say are underfunded local police and emergency responders against the Bush administration's heavy spending on Iraq.
Repeatedly sounding that theme yesterday, House Democrats said that 69 percent of city officials who responded to a recent survey feel the federal government is not doing "all it can" to protect the homeland. Cities complained that they lacked adequate funding for homeland security and that federal aid for new equipment and training is taking too long to reach them. About 300 officials from around the country responded to the survey.
The Democrats also used the occasion to push their version of a bill that would focus federal aid dollars on major urban areas and allow for direct grants, since many cities have complained that it has taken too long for money awarded through state governments to trickle down. Republicans hastened to point out that their party has put forth a competing bill that addresses many of the same concerns.
Still, using rhetoric that may become central to the 2004 campaign, Democrats blamed the Bush administration for not pushing harder and earlier to get more money into the budgets of those most likely to respond to a terrorist attack, even while it was waging a costly campaign in Iraq.
"The Bush administration is writing a blank check for security in Iraq while it is nickel and diming our first responders here at home," said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Malden. "Not a single local official in my district who responded to this survey feels that the Bush administration is doing all it can do for our hometown security. Local officials in my district do not feel adequately prepared for a biological or a chemical terrorist attack."
Brian Roehrkasse, press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, dismissed the Democrats' survey as both unscientific and one whose results "are based not necessarily as a matter of fact, but of an opinion formed with partisan bias."
He said the department has given out $4 billion in grants since its formation last spring, and would be announcing another $3 billion in first-responder grants next week, with hundreds of millions more in grants for firefighters also in the pipeline.
Markey noted, however, that the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations has estimated that it would take five times as much in annual federal spending on first-responders to meet current security needs.
Since March, Massachusetts has received about $70 million in various homeland security grants this year for police, training, and equipment.
Howard Leibowitz, intergovernmental relations director for Mayor Thomas Menino, said Boston had yet to receive about half of the funds. He said the city supports the proposed changes in how funds reach cities.
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, called the emerging theme part of the pre-election year maneuvering that "is not just about picking a candidate, but is also about positioning a party on all of the key issues."
He said the Democratic strategy seems aimed at securing two advantages: being able to point to calls for faster homeland security improvements if another terrorist attack occurs before next November, and diminishing the party's vulnerability to being tagged as big spenders.
"Democrats have a ready-made retort any GOP claim that they are overspending: Simply point to those superb electric grids and sewer systems that the taxpayers are installing in Iraq, and point out that the money could have been direct to something here," Sabato said.
Progressive Policy Institute president Will Marshall, a prominent moderate Democratic strategist, said the Bush administration "is vulnerable" for its domestic security spending priorities that have left serious gaps, but cautioned that the Democrats must not make too sweeping a condemnation lest it risk alienating mainstream voters.
"You have to be careful," he said. "I don't think Americans really acknowledge a choice between homeland security and overseas security. Both are part of a seamless fabric of protection, in most Americans' eyes."
