‘Port Security’ campaign spot may not hold water

The ad: “Port Security” a 30-second radio commercial by the Nethercutt campaign, accuses Patty Murray of underfunding agencies that provide protection for the nation’s ports, including the Coast Guard. Main points include Nethercutt’s contention that Murray is wrong to call ports the nation’s first line of defense when they should really be the last line of defense, and that Murray “led the effort to cut the president’s Coast Guard Budget after 9/11.”

Opponent’s reaction: The Murray campaign says it’s untrue that Murray cut the Coast Guard’s budget in fiscal 2003 – the first budget year after the terrorist attacks. The Senate appropriations bill, S.2808, proposed spending $6.071 billion on the Coast Guard, which was more than Bush’s proposed $6.057 billion or the House’s proposed $6.06 billion.

Campaign response: The Nethercutt campaign says the charge of cutting the budget is true because $300 million of the Coast Guard’s budget in the Senate proposal would have come from the Defense Department, which wasn’t under Murray’s jurisdiction as Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee chairwoman.

Analysis: The argument over whether the ports are the first line of defense or the last line of defense seems to be semantics and not substance; both candidates are saying the nation needs to do a better job of finding out what’s onboard the hundreds of cargo ships that dock each day at U.S. ports. The Murray campaign is correct that the text of the Senate bill has $11 million more than the House bill, which in turn had $3 million more than the president’s proposed budget. Nethercutt campaign’s argument that some of it came from the Defense Department obscures the fact that all the money ultimately comes from the U.S. Treasury; it also seems to revolve around an insider’s argument of the congressional budget process.