Replies

Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Possibly an accurate statistic, but irrelevant. Threats of terrorism or natural disaster have little to do with per capita risk. Terrorists targeting (so far) is skewed in favor of symbolism (e.g, WTC), and natural disasters are dictated by meteorological phenomena, fault lines, etc.

Hillary Clinton was making this same weak argument recently in the Senate when she argued that Montana was getting 5x the per capita DHS budget of New York. Aside from the pure pork barrel issues - sometimes the statistic of per capita expenditure is skewed by "lumpiness" (the fact that some investments are available only in large discrete units - i.e., you cannot have 5% of one aircraft carrier or one new and specialized fire truck) and by factors of sparse population (Montana and Wyoming, maybe?) and long international borders.

Thank God Michael Chertoff is at DHS and is basing his budgeting on risk assessments. When Chertoff goes before whatever committed the congress forms to investigate the Katrina Response - he will roast, toast and dispense with the Democrats.