President. let me just say to my friend from California that the chairman and I looked at this very carefully because it is a very valid request. The Senator from California makes a good point. I think the chairman has pointed out that in fact we have done a great deal for the Border Patrol within the limits of our appropriation allocation over the last several years and wish we could do more. There is no question but that the Senator from California makes a point which no one can dispute. We have problems along our borders and they are going to be solved only when we are willing to allocate more resources. The problem this subcommittee has is a problem had by all subcommittees. but ours is particularly acute because within our subcommittee we have allocations for the State Department in a separate budget agreement account. if you will. for a good part of it. and then. of course. we have the FBI. the DEA. the Bureau of Prisons. the courts. and all of those things that are essentially connected to the whole criminal justice system. What we have tried to do over the last 5 years is to try to look at it as a system. including the Border Patrol. and do all we could to move funds into areas which we thought had priority. I daresay that probably no two chairmen and ranking members would do it exactly the same. But we have to do it and report it to our committee. and we did.
Keywords matched
Border Patrol