Bush ignoring needs of cities: Sen. Clinton

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton accused the Bush administration on Wednesday of
ignoring the needs of cities in its politically driven zeal for
tax cuts and told U.S. mayors “you are on your own.”

Clinton, a potential White House candidate in 2008 who is
seeking Senate re-election this year in New York, said that
since the September 11 attacks President George W. Bush had
reneged on his obligation to states and cities to pay for
crucial security and social programs.

“Across the board, federal budget cuts are leaving states
and cities struggling to make up the difference,” Clinton told
a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

“We know the money is going to tax cuts,” she said, adding
those cuts are desirable in the right political and economic
climate but “it is hard to square with the challenges we face
at this time of terrorist threat.”

At the federal level, “the sense of urgency that marked the
months after the 9/11 attacks has largely given way to politics
as usual,” she said.

Bush’s message in his State of the Union speech to the U.S.
Congress next week “can be summed up in three words: on your
own. We are shifting costs and we are shifting risks onto
individuals and families and local governments,” she said.

“Mayors, you are on your own to protect your cities,” she
added.

Clinton’s comments were the latest in a series of blasts at
Bush in recent weeks. She said earlier this month his
presidency would “go down in history as one of the worst” and
accused him last week of playing down the Iranian threat.

A Republican Party spokesman said Clinton’s comments were
groundless.

“Senator Clinton’s political attacks ignore the reality
that Republican policies have generated more than 4.6 million
jobs since May 2003, created a Department of Homeland Security,
and invested record funding to protect cities throughout our
country,” Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz
said in a statement.

“The American people are simply not going to trust their
security to a defeatist party that continues to demonstrate its
pre-9/11 mentality and fundamental misunderstanding of the war
on terror,” Diaz said.

Talking to reporters after her speech, Clinton criticized
Bush’s defense of the legality of his domestic surveillance
plan, saying “their argument that it’s rooted in the authority
to go after al Qaeda is far-fetched.”

In an indirect reference to her husband, former President
Bill Clinton, she told the mayors Bush had squandered the
federal budget surpluses of five years ago.

She said Bush had slashed community development block
grants, school improvement funds, Medicaid and foster care
while not delivering the money to hire, train and equip local
emergency and security personnel.

“There is hardly a program that is part of the social
safety net that hasn’t been slashed,” Clinton said.