Homeland Security = Rural Pork
Noah Shachtman at
Defense Tech links to an interesting article in
Time Magazine:
Excerpting a few paragraphs here:
bq. International terrorism, as most experts will tell you, is not as unpredictable as it feels. Terrorists follow patterns. And while we can't read the minds of zealots, we can get a good idea of what kind of damage they could do in any given location.
bq. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, about $13.1 billion has surged into state coffers from the Federal Government—sorely needed money that has gone for police, fire and emergency services to help finance equipment and training to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks.
bq. That is a 990% increase over the $1.2 billion spent by the Federal Government for similar programs in the preceding three years. But the vast majority of the $13.1 billion was distributed with no regard for the threats, vulnerabilities and potential consequences faced by each region. Of the top 10 states and districts receiving the most money per capita last year, only the District of Columbia also appeared on a list of the top 10 most at-risk places, as calculated by AIR for TIME. In fact, funding appears to be almost inversely proportional to risk. If all the federal homeland-security grants from last year are added together, Wyoming received $61 a person while California got just $14, according to data gathered at TIME's request by the Public Policy Institute of California, an independent, nonprofit research organization. Alaska received an impressive $58 a resident, while New York got less than $25.
The article mentions that initially, a computer model was used to determine where funding should go. Also, in the days immediately after 9/11, many of the Washington buildings were closed due to Anthrax and some of the legislation for the funding got railroaded through. Good read!
Posted by DaveH at March 24, 2004 12:02 PM