Danny Westneat / Times staff columnist
A new call for shared sacrifice

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It's not that it would make much difference to the nation's security if we elect Democrat Patty Murray or Republican George Nethercutt. It's that they both seem to judge strength by whoever spends the most money.

Nethercutt says Murray should spend more securing our ports. Murray says Nethercutt should spend more on local anti-terrorism grants. A vote by either against any security spending is jumped upon as a sign of weakness.

This is the tenor of the national debate, too. You're either for homeland security or you're for the terrorists.

This homeland-security thing is starting to get out of hand.

Obviously, we need to protect ourselves. But when a government program is sacred to all sides, it's a matter of time before it turns into a boondoggle of waste and inefficiency.

Take the city of Sammamish, east of Bellevue. It got a $102,784 homeland security grant for locks, alarms and cameras at its new City Hall.

"The threat to our City Hall could be from terrorists," said Pete Butkus, the assistant city manager, "or it could be from run-of-the-mill street crazies. They're up here, too, you know, they're not only outside the Seattle Times building."

Fine, but how about doing this at your own expense? I'm fairly sure that street crazies storming small-town city halls were not the threat Congress had in mind when it created the anti-terrorism grants.

I looked at 100 similar local grants, and most of them make sense. For example, I was pleased that a lot of money is going to help water districts protect the drinking-water supply.

But other grants seem more for toys than urgently needed anti-terrorism equipment. Renton got $5,130 for waterproof digital cameras. The city of Bellevue got $416,527 to install a system of computer-managed traffic cameras.
 
The point of the cameras is to help Bellevue officials better direct traffic in a mass evacuation, or use surveillance footage to catch criminals.

I can't say that's a total waste of money. But wouldn't it be better spent, say, safeguarding New York Harbor?

And that's my real point here. It seems like we're losing our sense of shared national purpose. A new congressional study shows that states such as Wyoming and North Dakota get three times as much grant money per capita as New York. The 9/11 Commission called it "a free-for-all over money."

After 9/11, the call went out for us to share the sacrifice. Instead we are sharing the spoils.

Terrorism is tricky because who knows where it will occur next? Maybe Wyoming. Or Sammamish City Hall. But we can't afford to protect everything. If we try, we won't do a good job protecting much of anything.

What we need is someone with the courage to step in, stop the free-for-all and help set some priorities.

Maybe someone like our next U.S. senator.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Friday.

Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com