PRESIDENT BUSH CUTS HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING AGAIN

President ignores calls for increased funding by 9/11 Commission

WASHINGTON, DC – The General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO/CLC, Harold Schaitberger, issued this statement today on the signing of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for 2005.

“Our nation is under the constant threat of attack. That’s why the 9/11 Commission called for a rededication to preparedness, not a reduction like President Bush just signed. But as the attacks of September 11, 2001 get farther away, George Bush is forgetting how critical emergency response and preparedness are by notoriously under-funding those priorities.

“How else can he explain the fact that funding for first responders in the FY05 Budget has been cut to $3.6 billion - about $500 million less than last year's total, and that he supported an even deeper cut in his Budget proposals to Congress? Or that state homeland security block grants are being cut from $1.7 billion to $1.1 billion, a 35% decrease. Or that FIRE Act Grants to purchase fire equipment for local departments have been cut from $750 million to $715 million, and Urban Search and Rescue grants, which totaled $60 million in FY04, have been cut in half.

“Trying to score political points as the election nears is deplorable, yet that is what’s behind Bush Administration claims of increases in homeland security funding over the previous administration. But those assertions are smoke and mirrors accounting. They ignore that the attacks of 9/11 have changed the way we must approach homeland security since the last administration.

“The fact is that this latest Homeland Security budget represents a cut over FY04. This cut is irresponsible at best considering that an independent task force established by the Council on Foreign Relations said that our country will be $98.4 billion short of meeting ‘critical emergency responder needs’ over the next five years if current funding levels in 2004 were maintained. Since Bush is now cutting those funds, we are falling farther and farther behind what is needed to protect the American People.

“The fact is President Bush’s true colors are shown in the budgets he has put forward to the nation on homeland security, not in the bills that Congress has passed. In Bush’s first two budget proposals he zeroed out funding for the FIRE Act program that provides grants to local fire departments. President Bush fought against the SAFER Act that was passed last year by a bi-partisan Congress to put fire fighters in the two-thirds of America’s fire departments that are under-staffed today. And when it was passed, he proposed that SAFER receive no funding. Thankfully, leaders on both sides of the aisle in Congress went against the President’s wishes on both accounts, even if funding for SAFER is at minimal levels.

“Bush’s four-year record of under-funding not only these homeland security priorities, but also his failure to secure our borders – which has resulted in over 190,000 illegal aliens that just walked into our country so far this year – and his failure to secure our ports – where only five percent of the cargo ever gets inspected – must be raised. To ignore Bush’s record on these critical homeland security concerns ensures that we just keep getting more of the same rhetoric without real action.”

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