David Skaggs: “this amendment makes a very small addition to the Marshals Service fund and deletes $9.4 million in funding for TV Marti…”

“this amendment makes a very small addition to the Marshals Service fund and deletes $9.4 million in funding for TV Marti for a very simple reason: It is a complete waste of money. I wish to amend the bill at this point in particular so that Members who may be looking for offsets for more worthy uses of funds later in the bill would be able to have this $9.4 million for more deserving application, or conceivably that our good chairman would have a little bit of working room when he gets to conference, which I suspect he would welcome. For Members who may not be familiar with this program, I will first try to explain the logical reasons that we ought to end TV Marti, but let me just acknowledge at the outset some advice that I got from a very informed staff person over at the United States Information Agency. He said, ``Congressman, you know, you're trying to use logic to battle a cartoon.'' So if some of this seems a little bit surreal as we go along, that perhaps will help Members understand what is going on. Mr. Chairman, TV Marti is broadcast out of a balloon hung over the Florida Keys most weekdays from 3:30 a.m., until 8 a.m., and it goes to, or tries to go to, the greater Havana area. But since TV Marti began broadcasting in 1990, virtually nobody has seen it because, sad to say, the Castro government is very successful in jamming it. To date we have spent over $110 million, real money, on this failed program.”