Trump wants to stiff New York on homeland security spending - including $36M on Trump Tower security, lawmakers say
WASHINGTON — New York lawmakers are pushing hard to erase President Trump’s cuts to homeland security funding — including the hefty cost of protecting Trump Tower — which Trump’s budget dumps on New York City.
Although it went largely unnoticed when the White House released its spending plan last month, Trump’s fiscal barbers wanted to shave $587 million from current homeland security spending, including the $36 million that went to guarding his own building near the United Nations.
According to a letter signed by the city’s entire congressional delegation and obtained by the Daily News, the local lawmakers are trying to undo that, and then some.
The bipartisan push, led by freshman Staten Island Democratic Rep. Max Rose and Long Island Republican Rep. Pete King, who are both on the Homeland Security Committee, would add close to $1 billion to Trump’s numbers when Congress writes its own spending plan later this spring.
"New York City continues to be the nation’s top target for terrorists seeking to inflict damage on the American people, as well as its economy and infrastructure," says the message to the top Democrat and Republican on the House appropriations subcommittee that writes the homeland security budget. "Ensuring the safety of those who call our city home, and visitors from every district in the nation, is our top priority."
Related: Homeland Security
New York has long been the top target on terrorists' wish list. The letter points to the 2016 Chelsea bombing and the 2017 West Side highway truck attack as proof of the "real and adapting" terror threat New York faces.
Because of the attacks it's suffered even before 9/11, the city has always gotten more federal homeland security grant money than anywhere else, and Trump's cuts would hurt it the most. In 2018, New York got about a fifth of the nation's State Homeland Security Grant Program spending and nearly a third of the high-risk funding from the Urban Areas Security Initiative.
Trump's budget would slash this year's state grant program from $525 million to $331 million. Rose and King want $563 million in 2020. The White House wants to slash this year's high-risk spending from $640 million to $462 million. King and Rose want $662 million.
Trump is also seeking deep cuts to this years' $100 million Port Security Grants and Transit Security Grants programs. Trump penciled in just $36 million for each, while the New Yorkers are demanding $250 million for each.
The administration also wants to zero out some of the smaller programs, including the Presidential Residence Protection Grant. That was $41 million this year, with some of it also going to towns that host other Trump properties. Rose and King want to boost that to $50 million.
Rose said it’s the least Congress could do to help New York carry out one of the toughest anti-terrorism assignments in the world.
“New York City has the best and the brightest committed to keeping our city safe every day and night — so we need to have their backs just like they have ours,” said Rose, who chairs the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism. “I’m proud that we are all united when it comes to keeping our city safe and protected from real threats of terror.”
