THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And because they like slashing money from everything except unbridled defense spending, the Republican budget cuts money from every possible place they can find. Some of them have a purpose you might wish to continue.

The Department of Homeland Security plans to close a New York-based laboratory that has helped the city’s Police and Fire Departments develop systems to detect nuclear and biological threats, a move that some local officials fear could hamper the city’s efforts to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks.

The radiological program that the facility, the National Urban Security Technology Laboratory, developed with the New York Fire Department is widely considered the national standard, and technologies it has tested are in widespread use around the country. It has also worked on systems to combat drug trafficking and money laundering: Portable card readers it tested have helped officials recover millions of dollars in drug proceeds smuggled across borders using gift and other prepaid cards.

“The lab has provided an invaluable amount of information to us over the years, including helping us understand biological and nuclear threats when nobody understood that stuff,” said Gerard McCarty, the director of emergency management at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. “And they continue to provide critical support to us in researching and testing technologies.”

The Trump administration has proposed closing the lab as part of larger cuts it envisions for the Department of Homeland Security’s scientific research and development programs. The administration’s budget would cut funding for these programs by more than 18 percent, from $771 million in the last fiscal year to $627 million this year, according to budget documents.

But in interviews, law enforcement and emergency management officials in New York and New Jersey, as well as members of Congress from both parties, said they were concerned about the potential loss of a Homeland Security research facility in a city that remains a top target for terrorists.

Some officials pointed out that the lab’s annual budget was just $3.4 million, and others noted that the lab’s work had saved communities millions of dollars in research costs.

“It’s less than a pittance in the federal budget,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. “It’s not even a fraction of a rounding error and has broad ramifications and impact on the law enforcement community.”

Mr. Blumenthal and three other Democratic senators recently wrote a letter to members of the Senate Appropriations Committee asking them to include funding for the lab in the 2018 budget, saying the loss of the facility would have serious repercussions for national security. The other signers were Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut.

In the House, Representative Dan Donovan, Republican of New York, sponsored an amendment to a spending bill, passed in September, that would maintain the lab’s funding.

“Today, the United States — and specifically New York City — faces a heightened terror environment,” Mr. Donovan in a statement. “Bombing attempts in New York and New Jersey last year, as well as global attacks in public areas and on mass transit systems, remind us of the importance of developing innovative technologies that allow security personnel to respond to and mitigate evolving threats.”

It is rather strange for the GOP to be cutting security funding, but it does work that interferes with the GOP's friends in the terrorist and illegal drug businesses and profits do come first. Also it is located in New York, that hotbed of Democrats, can't have that.