HOMELAND SECURITY -- SPENDING FREELY BUT NOT WISELY

americanprogressaction.org
HOMELAND SECURITY -- SPENDING FREELY BUT NOT WISELY:
President Bush made a promise to spend taxpayers' dollars wisely or not at all
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050202-11.html) , but
when it comes to port security, he is doing neither of those two
things. The conclusion of an audit conducted by the inspector general of the
Department of Homeland Security has found that the agency "has
allocated hundreds of millions of dollars
(http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/politics/20secure.html?) to protect
ports since Sept. 11 without sufficiently focusing on those that are
most vulnerable." For example, there were cases in which grants were
questionably allocated to "small projects in resort areas," which the audit
found lacked merit or failed to meet requirements, rather than to
"larger projects at ports that are more vital to the national economy." This
strategy of spending without any strategy threatens to "compromise the
nation's ability to better defend against terrorist attacks." The audit
ultimately found that "the program has not yet achieved its intended
results in the form of actual improvement in port security," a
declaration that counters every claim President Bush has made about how much
money has been spent on port security.