The 10 Ways Bush Screwed New York, a presidential potpourri

[G_j]

http://www.villagevoice.com/print/issues/0434/barrett.php

A presidential potpourri of cuts, blunders, stonewalls, deceptions, and distractions

The 10 Ways Bush Screwed New York

by Wayne Barrett, special reporting by Daniel Magliocco
August 24th, 2004 10:25 AM



Here's a welcome from New York 9-11 Veterans for Truth, a big hello for Republicans from a city hit by a couple of swift jets 35 months—not 35 years—ago. It's matched by just as friendly an insistence that the convention focus on how Bush-Cheney responded to our riverbank assault, rather than on an ancient Mekong attack, where the first test of courage was being there. With the president scheduled to barely show up here all week, wouldn't it be respectful if the delegates and media actually got around town to see just what he's done to us since the bullhorn bravado of 2001? They could start with NYPD Blue, that All-American army deployed all over midtown.

There are actually 5,879 fewer city cops than in 2000, partly due to the nearly 90 percent Bush cuts in Bill Clinton's COPS programs. Even with the post-9-11 invention of homeland security funding, NYC is getting $61 million less in federal public-safety subsidies than it did before our cops became America's front line. Bush's 2005 budget proposes even more cuts. Though most conventioneers would prefer to forget it, George W. Bush has slashed the troop strength that host committee hero Rudy Giuliani put on duty.

With the Bush administration also opposing legislation backed by Mayor Bloomberg that would've compensated the city for revenue lost due to 9-11, six firehouses were closed as well. That includes one on 125th Street in East Harlem, an engine company that might well have been summoned to Madison Square Garden in a multi-alarm fire. Of course, should anything catastrophic happen there during convention week, the firefighters whose brothers died on 9-11 will still be communicating on the same, reprogrammed, radios that cost lives three years ago, thanks to a president who refused to pony up the $120 million needed for new ones. Bush has also de-funded the SAFER program even after Congress passed it—blocking NYC from hiring more firefighters—and limited equipment purchases under the FIRE program to a puny cap of $750,000, putting NY's allocation on a par with Poland, Ohio's, with Montana getting $9 per capita for federal firefighter aid and NYC nine cents.

Delegates still mesmerized by that NY's Bravest luster might want stop at another East Harlem landmark—Mount Sinai Hospital—where thousands of Ground Zero rescue workers are still being screened for the lingering effects of their misplaced faith in post–9-11 health advisories emanating from Bush's White House–scripted EPA. Though the first Bush-Cheney commercial featured a flag-draped coffin carried through Ground Zero by firefighters, the administration actually fought the paltry $90 million allocation for Mount Sinai and firefighter screening programs, as if it still believed its own altered press releases about that historic toxic cloud.

..more..

[electricmonk]

1. Here's another way he's screwing them

Just came across this a few minutes ago.
Convention could cost NYC $309 million
-snip-
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City stands to lose about $309 million as a result of the Republican National Convention, the city comptroller's office reported Tuesday, contrary to the city's claim of a $265 million economic gain.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Good info for the eve of the Convention --

[G_j]

3. kick