Here's the latest example of how Bush has failed to take the obvious, common sense steps any reasonable person could agree on to make America safer.
The problem? Our mass transit system. If you think London's attack in the subway and bus system should wake us up, you're forgetting that Spain's mass transit system was ALSO attacked by terrorists. That didn't shake Bush out of his lethargy. Why should this?
USA Today has a good story about how our nation's mass transit system has been seriously underfunded.
U.S. transit authorities say the nation's ground-transportation network requires an immediate $6 billion security upgrade, yet it is budgeted to receive just $100 million from the federal government next year.
$100 million? That's the amount of tomorrow's MegaMillions Lottery jackpot. And Bush thinks that's enough to ensure the safety of our mass transit system in the entire country? And this after the attacks in Spain? Feel safer? Here in NYC -- where you think we'd be more concerned with safety against terrorism than any other place in the nation -- Republican Mayor Bloomberg and Republican Governor Pataki are also dragging their feet.
The NY Post reports on numerous safety gaps, plans to tighten crucial weak spots that have been rejected and more in a story called "MTA Safety Gap."
More than two years ago, the MTA announced it would spend $591 million in federal and state funds to make the transit system more secure.
But as of March, it had only spent $30 million of the money to hire four politically connected consultants — Jacobs Engineering Group, SAIC, URS and Parsons Brinckerhoff — to come up with ideas about security projects.
Just throwing a bunch of money around and spending it poorly would deserve criticism as well. But what's shocking here is not that Bush and his buddies aren't proving incompetent in making America safer and stronger during the war on terror. What's shocking is that they aren't even trying.
