Budget debate is redefined by terror attacks  September 14,
2001|The Morning Call  This was supposed to be the week that
Congress was to wrestle with President Bush's defense budget
requests. The concerns were whether the nation could afford the
expense without further dipping into the shrinking budget
surplus, whether enough money was being appropriated and whether
the nation could afford a missile defense system.  The horrible
events of Tuesday have profoundly changed the debate. Concerns
about the budget surplus seem trivial compared to the challenge
this country faces today. What is money compared to the security
and the future of democracy and freedom that this nation is and
represents to the world?  And yet, we live in a real world, and
the effectiveness of the way we confront the insidious threat of
a war of terrorism depends on how we marshal what resources we
have. Those who perpetrated this horror did so with far less
than what the United States has at its disposal. So we must be
even smarter and cr