Cleaver: Unwise budget cuts leave holes in emergency services

In his weekly EC from DC newsletter, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. describes how recent budget cuts have slashed preparedness grant programs:

Recently I learned that the Kansas City area would lose $7 million in security and preparedness funding. The list of communities eligible for the Urban Area Security Initiative has been cut in half as part of this year’s budget cuts, which I did not support. Since 2003, our community has received $72 million through the initiative. This year, nothing.


The loss of funds means the jobs of police officers, firefighters and first responders just got a lot harder. This misguided budget package decimates almost every area preparedness grant program.

Weeks ago I said “the timing could not be worse” for withdrawing support from emergency workers. I was wrong. With tornadoes in Joplin and Sedalia, the timing just got quite a bit worse.

We know there is chatter from our enemies about attacks on “softer targets” across the country — some of them all too close to home. We also know that programs helping prevent, respond to, and recover from man-made disasters do the same for natural disasters. Since 2003, when the program began, Missouri has experienced 21 federal disasters. When the worst happens, whether it is weather or not, we use those tools and techniques to make our wounded communities well.

Kansas City Fire Department Chief Richard “Smokey” Dyer said losing this funding makes us less safe. It has paid for emergency vehicles, tactical law enforcement teams, a multi-band emergency radio system, a patient tracking system, emergency information management and coordination and special emergency medical units dealing with mass casualties. The funds pay for teams who will be first on the scene when catastrophe comes to call. When the Joplin tornado hit, three such teams were dispatched immediately.

The current Washington mood favors “across the board” cuts. This is a very bad idea. I have consistently and vocally opposed the indiscriminate cuts, while favoring targeted, laser-like cuts.

Did our first responders cause our budget deficit? Are our doctors and nurses to blame for our national debt? Did those referred to in the Bible as “the least of these” run up our national credit card? Absolutely not. The economic downturn, the Bush tax cuts and the never-budgeted wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are the main culprits. Yet many of D.C.’s grand pooh-bahs, to the cheers of some voters, are cutting with an over-sized machete.

The final 2011 budget cut the security program by $162 million, placing at risk 34 cities across the country. A program to help train pediatricians was cut by $48 million, eliminating 450 slots for pediatric residents in hospitals nationwide. Children’s Mercy will lose almost $1 million, which would train 89 pediatric residents. Community Development Block Grant funding was cut by $647 million. There goes $132,000 for Independence, $1.48 million for Kansas City, and $55,233 for Lee’s Summit. These cuts will reduce, among other things, disaster assistance for low-income areas.

The U.S. budget is a moral document, a bold testament to our national priorities. It should reflect who we are as a people. If the safety and security of our communities is not a priority, I don’t know what is. It is clear, after the security cuts, that our much-vaunted safety net now has a titanic tear.