Thursday, June 01, 2006

What the decision by the Department of Homeland security to cut funding to New York tells us, is that New York’s representatives have no power:

This morning we awoke to the front pages of our newspapers complaining how the Department of Homeland security has abandoned New York. It appears every representative in the city took it as an opportunity to trash the administration on the issue. I however think the DHS decision should cause New Yorkers to ask themselves a different question. Just how powerful are our representatives in Washington when it comes to allocating money?

We constantly hear about all the pork barrel spending that takes place in Washington. The problem is as New Yorkers, you never hear that any of it is for us. If you recall I placed a post a couple weeks ago titled “Big Spenders” in regards to the emergency-spending bill for Iraq and Katrina floating through Washington that has passed the President’s called for amount because Washington representatives decided to overflow it with pork spending for people like sugarcane growers in Hawaii. If you recall I pointed out how Senator McCain tried to get this pork stripped only to have it voted down and kept in, with Hillary and Schumer more than happy to be on the side to give money to Hawaiian farmers.

This is just one example of many where New York is left on the short end. The problem is that the majority of New Yorkers are so consumed with the idea of having a liberal democrat represent them because of things like gay marriage and abortion that they fail to hold them accountable for anything else. I compare New York representatives in Washington to those poor three Republican soles in the City Council who are forced to just sit there and watch as everyone else gets to make the rules. Though in New York we sit and listen to Schumer, Hillary and even Weiner talk a big game everyday to us, when it comes to getting New York its share they have no game.

Considering New York was the target of attack for two WTC bombings and numerous other plots, the DHS decision to cut our funding is definitely head scratching. However instead of attacking the DHS, our papers and voters should be attacking their representatives asking them “why did we vote you in again”. Maybe if Hillary and Schumer weren’t so worried about funding Hawaiian sugarcane farmers they might have had more time to actually get money sent back to the state who voted them in.