[Postscript: By way of the wonders of technology -- the visual and the audio are not well synched. And perhaps that is prophetic -- as upset as Senator Mikulski is in this clip. Listen to the words -- smile at the out of synch technology...]
During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on April 16, 2008, Maryland Democrat Senator Barbara Mikulski gave White House budget director Jim Nussle a piece of her mind over the Bush administration's lack of funding for Department of Justice domestic law enforcement programs... Hat TIP: "Think Progress" and "Amanda."
Transcript:
MIKULSKI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you very much for calling this hearing. I think it's the essential thing we need to do.
Mr. Nussle, I've got to tell you, I'm really disappointed in your testimony. It's been some time that I have heard the kind of tone that has been expressed by a representative of the Bush administration. Your testimony has been disappointing in both tone and substance.
I personally take offense at the snarky, scolding, dismissive way that this testimony represents. And I think it's inappropriate. [...]
This is an ideological commentary, not the testimony of OMB. So since you're pugnacious, guess what? I'm going to be pretty pugnacious, too, only my pugnaciousness is not going to be directed at the Congress. It's going to be pugnacious about the people I represent.
So let's get to it. Pugnacious? You bet. Let's pick up on what Leahy and Harkin said about the Byrne grant. You want the regular order? I am the regular order. I chair CJS. And what this administration has done here has been outrageous.
Number one, let's go to safety and security. We have funded the surge of Baghdad, but we have not funded the surge of violent crime in Baltimore, Biloxi, or other places. You have zeroed out the COPS program. You have zeroed out the Byrne grant.
When Shelby and Mikulski tried to do something last year in the regular budget, we were told, Eat $3 billion or face a veto threat. So we foraged and we skimped and we squeezed in to be able to make sure that our bill didn't get a veto threat, and we came up with $170 million.
You can talk about all your smokestacks and whatever, but you bet there's smoke. There's smoke right here and now, and there is frustration from state and local police officers that say they need help. They need help.
And this administration has funded $5 billion over the last couple of years to fund the training of Iraqi police. You bet they need training. But I am telling you, I need the money, Senator Shelby and I need the money to make sure that our local law enforcement, the thin blue line, gets the money that they need to fight violent crime. So I'm going to ask in plain English: If, in fact, we (inaudible) the supplemental, restore the Byrne grants and only the Byrne grants to the needed level of $560 million, will you support it or will we face a veto threat?
NUSSLE: Well, Senator, I can only repeat what the president has said.
MIKULSKI: The president didn't say anything about this. You think if I went to see the president, he would say, No ?
NUSSLE: Senator, I can only repeat what the president said. And his two priorities that he stated were that the bill stay within the $108.1 billion request and that it support the troops. That's what he has said on the topic.
Beyond that, I don't believe he has — I think the senator is correct — not spoken directly to those issues. But I also believe that the regular appropriations process is the time and the place to deal with those challenges. And...
MIKULSKI: But you eliminated it. You eliminated the COPS program, and you eliminated the Byrne grant program in your regular appropriations request.
So you're saying, Don't fund it in the supplemental. The president doesn't request it in the regular order. And now you're telling me you can't accept it in the supplemental because the president didn't talk about it. And when you sent us the CJS president's request, it's not in there for '09. [...]
Mr. Chairman, with your cooperation, I hope that we do and fund it. If we're talking about a safe and secure America, I want to make sure the streets of the United States of America are safe and secure. And I will work on a bipartisan basis to do it.
BYRD: Senator Murray?
MURRAY: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for having this hearing.
And, Mr. Nussle, I share the anger, frustration, I guess pugnaciousness of the senator from Maryland. It is extremely disturbing to me that we are getting an emergency supplemental request for Iraq and Afghanistan five-and-a-half years into this war that's being paid for off the books.
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