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"With New York City on the highest level of alert for the past 35 months and especially with the latest warnings, our first responders are working overtime to keep all those who live in and visit our great city safe and secure. That is why I hope that after Congressional leaders and the president rely on New York's finest, they will finally do right by the city (and the state) and address the imbalanced and illogical way that homeland security funds are distributed... In the latest fiscal year, Wyoming received $38 per person while New York received less than $5.50 per person from the largest pot of federal homeland security funding. This irrational system is the result of a decision to allocate more than 75 percent of some $2.9 billion the federal government spends on homeland security without regard to threat. Instead, each state gets a guaranteed minimum portion of this money, with the rest being divided up on a per-person basis. Under this system, New York City received only 3 percent of the $2.9 billion in the three largest homeland security programs, and only 2.5 percent of 2004 homeland security-related funds... This year, New York City has received $97 million from all Department of Homeland Security programs. The annual cost of homeland security operations for the Police Department alone is more than twice that. Add in the needs of the Fire Department and other first responders, and the increased spending required due to the most recent terror warnings, which specifically mention New York and Washington, and it is abundantly clear that the current system makes no sense... Don't take it from me. The 9/11 commission has also called for changing the formula so that it is based on threat and risk, not pork-barrel politics. The report said, 'Federal homeland security assistance should not remain a program for general revenue sharing.' I could not agree more."
-- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton