If the Feds won't help...

At least I know that the NYC mayor and the NYPD chief are well aware of how formidable, expensive, and utterly important the task is of defending our public transit system. Three days after my rant, I read an excellent piece in the New Yorker about the NYPD's anti-terrorism unit.
Before 9/11, the N.Y.P.D. had fewer than two dozen officers working the terrorism beat full time. Today, there are about a thousand.
Did you know...
...the N.Y.P.D. is almost twice the size of the F.B.I.?
...David Cohen, who is the N.Y.P.D.’s Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence, spent 35 years at the C.I.A. (and rose to become director of operations there)?
...the N.Y.P.D. has detectives stationed in France, Britain, Israel, Canada, and Singapore? (Singapore? I wondered the same thing.)
...On the morning of the London bombings, four N.Y.P.D. detectives were on a flight to London by 9 a.m.?
...NYPD officers have visited more than 20,000 businesses since 2002, enlisting most of them in the "Nexus" program, which keeps tabs on, among other things, terror-sensitive businesses and merchandise? (Business owners basically have a direct # to call if they see suspicious customers or activity).
... and the most surprising, impressive (in regards to Mayor Bloomberg's priorities) and depressing (in regards to the fed's) fact about the NYPD's anti-terror efforts:
The bill for the city's anti-terrorism budget is roughly $200 million a year. And it is footed, for the most part, by the city itself.
As William Finnegan reminds us in his story, in fiscal year 2004, Wyoming received $37.74 per capita, and North Dakota $30.82. New York got $5.41.
Among the fifty states, New York’s per-capita allotment was forty-eighth.
If the federal government isn't willing to ante up, I think we should slap a 5-percent tourist tax on every hotel room and earmark it for anti-terror funds.
And I wish that it was written somewhere in Michael Chertoff's contract that he must take public transportation. Every day.
(And especially when he comes to NYC).