Friday, June 11, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: The 'anti-terror' pork parade

Make sure grants are really used to fight terror

The classic example of what happens when a "limited, well-meaning" program comes out of the congressional meatgrinder is the nation's carnival of farm subsidies.

Created as an "emergency measure" during the great Depression, the farm program is still going strong after 70 years.

"The USDA is paying eleven-year-old children $50,000 a year not to plant corn," reported James Bovard in his 1989 book, "The Farm Fiasco." Mr. Bovard and others wonder why the USDA maintains "agricultural extension offices" in urban eastern counties where farming is limited to backyard tomato patches. In 1977 the Agriculture Department tried to eliminate the issuance of thousands of wool subsidy checks of $3 or less -- which cost the bureaucracy more to mail out than their face value. "But parents of youngsters conducting 4-H projects protested vehemently," Mr. Bovard notes.

Can't start them young enough, apparently, getting that needle in the arm to start the federal subsidy I.V.

How did all this happen? Simply enough. Farm state congressmen needed the votes of congressmen from urban districts, so they larded up the USDA budget with "something for everyone."

The question is -- why would we expect Congress to spend money any more wisely when it comes time to divvying up $4.3 billion earmarked to help prepare local American communities fight the "War on Terror"?

Initially, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge identified seven cities as the most likely targets for future terrorist attack: New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and Seattle. He wanted to spend all the money there.

But congressmen representing other districts began to bellow.

By last year, Gov. Ridge had "seen the light," politically speaking, sending money to 50 cities and 30 transit systems newly designated as "high-density threat targets."

New York City -- no one has to guess at the likelihood of terror attacks there -- ended up receiving $5.47 per person in the 2004 budget. Wyoming got $38.31 per person.

Finally this week, Homeland Security officials are saying publicly they want to reverse this trend, redirecting billions of dollars in grants away from less populated areas.

"Battle lines" are being drawn. Rep. Chris Cox, a California Republican, would scrap the current spread-it-around system and apportion $4.3 billion in homeland security grants to states and localities based strictly on threat analysis.

But the rurals aren't taking this lying down. Republican Porkmaster Steve LaTourette of Ohio counters with his own new legislation, which would set aside 30 percent of grant money to be distributed evenly among states, and even allow "homeland security" money to be used for natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes!

Showing rare courage in a political year, the Bush administration's proposed 2005 budget for security grants tilts away from the rural areas and toward the cities -- "a political oddity," reports The Associated Press, given that Rep. LaTourette's Ohio is a key swing state in the presidential election, while New York and California are already solidly behind Democratic challenger John Kerry.

Any number of things might help America fight terrorists. But the domestic "security grants" system is porkfat, pure and simple. Get rid of it. And in the meantime, here's an idea: If Delaware and Connecticut can be talked into giving up their farm subsidies ... would Iowa and Wisconsin be willing to forgo designation as "high-risk terror targets"?

Moo.