USAT: GOP Sen. Gregg: Critical border-security money diverted to Guard

Senator: Critical border-security money diverted
Gregg says $1.9B going to Guard instead of equipment upgrades
By Kathy Kiely
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — A key Republican leader said Wednesday that President Bush is forcing lawmakers to choose between putting National Guard troops on the U.S.-Mexican border and giving the law enforcement officers already there the cars, planes and other equipment they need to do their job.

Delivering an unusual public critique of the administration's border-security priorities, Senate Budget Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., announced that $1.9 billion the Senate approved last month for equipment is being diverted to pay for the deployment of up to 6,000 National Guard troops. Bush announced plans to send the Guard troops to the border in a nationally televised speech Monday.

Gregg, who also chairs a subcommittee in charge of funding border security, said in a Senate floor speech that an effort to repair or replace aging equipment for the Border Patrol and Coast Guard “is essentially dead.” He predicted that border agents will be hamstrung.

“A lot are going to be sitting in cars that don't run and planes that don't take off,” he told reporters.

White House deputy chief of staff Joel Kaplan said this week that the administration will work with Gregg and other members of Congress to determine how to best allocate the $1.9 billion. “We think, obviously, that we've got a good approach for how to most effectively spend that money to secure the border,” Kaplan said....

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060518/a_border18.art.htm

Once again, sending the NG (by robbing funds already allocated for equipping the local border law enforcement) is all about placating *'s increasingly angry base.


This robbery of our country just goes on and on and on.

of the remaining pot and who gets to say where it goes.

the 10,000 additional border guards were cut to about 200 because of "budget constraints" - that is tax cuts for the rich were more important

idocy by pulling shut the purse-stings?

Interesting!