Cord Byrd: “on the 5 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, many our Nation's commentators asked the same question: Are…”

“on the 5 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, many our Nation's commentators asked the same question: Are we safer today than we were on 9/11? Well, I must say to my colleagues, that is the wrong question. America was not safe on 9/11. So in my book, being safer than we were on 9/11 is not saying much. We must set a higher standard. Regrettably, the President has set a very low standard. The President is comfortable with cutting grants to first responders 3 years in a row at the same time that our police, fire, and emergency medical personnel still cannot talk to each other on their radio systems. The President is comfortable with cutting grants to equip and train our heroic firefighters by 46 percent and with proposing to eliminate the program to hire more firefighters. The President is comfortable with a Homeland Security Department that is so bureaucratically lethargic that $173 million approved by Congress to secure our ports sat in the Treasury here in Washington for 11½ months. This President is comfortable with a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul approach to homeland security.”