Do I Feel Safer Now?

Are our ports safer? Not according to P. J. Crowley.

[T]he Coast Guard has estimated that the program required under the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 will cost the nation $7.5 billion over ten years — and $1.3 billion in the coming year alone — the Bush Administration has asked for only $46 million for fiscal 2005 to support states agencies and the private sector that operate the ports, facilities and vessels affected by these new regulations. Rather than increasing federal assistance in the face of new security requirements, the Bush Administration’s port security grant request is actually a huge reduction from the still inadequate total of $500 million allocated for port security in the first three years of the Bush Administration.