“You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.” John Kenneth Galbraith

States have come under pressure to raise their taxes for basic needs while federal taxes are reduced. But, not expected was that President Bush would short change its own stated number one priority the safety of the homeland.

Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge may provide low cost diversion with color-coded alerts and advice to stock up on duct tape & plastic for protection against germs or chemical warfare. Talk is cheap. Real security is expensive. One would have thought with memories of 9-11, the first priority would be the first responders to a terrorist attack. ...the police, the fireman, the public health workers. But such is not the case.

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley writes in the Washington post today that the federal government provided only a million dollars of the eleven million that city has spent on homeland defense. And, O'Malley asks why it is necessary to wait for another devastating attack before taking action to protect America’s ports, railways and borders.

Recently former Senators Warren Rudman & Gary Hart who chaired a council on foreign relations study on homeland defense warned that another 9-11 would find most of the nation’s cities no better prepared to react than last time.

It will take more than duct tape to meet this challenge. Maybe we need an alert system on Capitol Hill that flashes red when Congress is about to pass another tax cut which will siphon off money the vulnerable infrastructure could use in our defense.