Bush to D.C.: You'll pay

While the Bush administration has raised a record $40 million to pay for
champagne, fireworks, and marching bands at its inaugural bash, it can't
seem to find the money to help the District of Columbia cover the
security costs. According to this morning's Washington Post, the Bush
administration is planning to leave the cash-strapped city holding an
11.9 million dollar bill.

"Federal officials have told the District that it should cover the
expenses by using some of the $240 million in federal homeland security
grants it has received in the past three years -- money awarded to the
city because it is among the places at highest risk of a terrorist attack."

"The region has earmarked federal homeland security funds for such
priorities as increasing hospital capacity, equipping firefighters with
protective gear and building transit system command centers." But now,
the Post reports, nearly $12 million will now have to be spent on such
essentials as "reviewing stands."

Considering that a full 90 percent of the District's residents went to
the polls on Nov. 2 in the hope that Bush would never see a second
inauguration, it seems like poor form to make them pay so much for the
festivities. Even members of the president's own party are taken aback:
A spokesman for Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, a Virginia Republican who
chairs the committee which oversees the District, called the Bush
administration's position "simply not acceptable."

"'It's an unfunded mandate of the most odious kind. How can the District
be asked to take funds from important homeland security projects to pay
for this instead?'"