Political Quotes

“this is one of the amendments which was offered during the subcommittee markup but which we did not pursue because we had not identified offsets for the additional $50 million being requested, and we wanted an opportunity to try to work it out before the bill came before the Senate. We have not really worked out all of the details of this. Therefore, I am informed by the chairman of the subcommittee he may not be able to support this amendment at this time. It is my intention to at least begin the process on behalf of myself and Senator Hutchison, who hopefully will be present shortly, so we can begin the discussion as to how to find a way to fund some additional Customs inspectors, particularly to be deployed on the southwest border. Before I describe the problem and the reason for this, I commend the chairman and the ranking member of the subcommittee for a really heroic effort to save existing Customs inspectors. What had happened is, the way the administration's budget had been prepared, it was going to fund existing agents out of a fee structure that never had any chance of being passed by the Congress or implemented into law. Had not the chairman and ranking member acted quickly to find other sources of funding, we would have lost 617 existing Customs inspectors, but they were able to find that money elsewhere. As a result, those positions have been saved at least for now.”