Cheapskates

Nice. Just nice.

D.C. officials said yesterday that the Bush administration is refusing to reimburse the District for most of the costs associated with next week's inauguration, breaking with precedent and forcing the city to divert $11.9 million from homeland security projects.

Federal officials have told the District that it should cover the expenses by using some of the $240 million in federal homeland security grants it has received in the past three years -- money awarded to the city because it is among the places at highest risk of a terrorist attack.

But that grant money is earmarked for other security needs, Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) said in a Dec. 27 letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua B. Bolten and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Williams's office released the letter yesterday.

Williams estimated that the city's costs for the inauguration will total $17.3 million, most of it related to security. City officials said they can use an unspent $5.4 million from an annual federal fund that reimburses the District for costs incurred because of its status as the capital. But that leaves $11.9 million not covered, they said.

"We want to make this the best possible event, but not at the expense of D.C. taxpayers and other homeland security priorities," said Gregory M. McCarthy, the mayor's deputy chief of staff. "This is the first time there hasn't been a direct appropriation for the inauguration."

It's bad enough that they haven't decided to cancel all the hoopla and send the money to tsunami relief, or to pay for armoring soldiers in Iraq. Or, they could just cancel all the balls (and the hundreds of white chocolate cowboy boots) to make it a dignified observance and maintain some sense of decorum in wartime, but no, everything FDR did needs to be rejected. (What's a little dancing on people's graves, even if they are our soldiers?)

I don't really think that protecting wealthy campaign contributors and lobbyists on their way to glamorous parties is what I want my homeland security dollars spent on. But it's good to know what the administration's priorities are when it comes to defending the country.

One imagines that there might be ways for the mayor of a large Eastern city to express his displeasure should this appropriation not appear. I sure hope the water mains outside the ballrooms don't happen to break, and freeze, requiring all the streets to be torn up, and forcing people to don their gowns without a shower. But things break, y'know what I mean?