Don Nickles: “Basically they will want to increase spending everywhere. In this particular area we are increasing spending a lot. The…”

“Basically they will want to increase spending everywhere. In this particular area we are increasing spending a lot. The Department of Homeland Security has a 15-percent increase, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That is counting bioshield. That is kind of hard to compute. Take bioshield out. It is a 10-percent increase--a 10-percent increase. Secretary Ridge wants to reallocate some of it into higher threat areas. I know some people want to use homeland security as basically revenue sharing and give more money to every city in the area, or every county in the area, maybe every police department or fire department and say this is for homeland security. Secretary Ridge said we should reallocate some of these moneys. It is still a big increase. Actually, it is the largest percentage increase of any of our major departments, and we should direct this toward the high critical threat area. I compliment him for that. I also say this is money wasted. A lot of money is being wasted.”