EDITORIAL
U.S. must spend more for homeland security

Hawai'i Reps. Ed Case and Neil Abercrombie are right to be asking the Bush administration to come up with substantially more money for homeland defense.

Two things should not be inferred here, however:

• Hawai'i is not being hypocritical in demanding more federal support for local security expenses while claiming to be safer than other states. The expenses are genuine and far greater than the federal money so far sent our way.
• Case and Abercrombie are not getting into a fight with other cities and locations for their fair share of federal homeland security spending. It's not about allocation, it's about the total size of the pie. Federal spending on homeland security is well short of the total amount required.

It's a shame the homeland security effort threatens to become yet another political football. President Bush, who at first opposed creating a Department of Homeland Security, has been accused by Democrats of stinting in his requests for funding it, as well as in covering related expenses across the nation.

And that's why Case and Abercrombie, correctly, are seeking more money.