Hunter Pushes President to Build Border Fence

All his bill does is detail where and when the fence is to be built, it does not supersede the funding issue in any manner nor provide any additional funding. So bottom line, they got $2.1B in the DHS 2007 Appropriations less the $950M stipulated as not obligated until a plan is approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee to spend it. That doesn't sound like $800M to me. I posted where he is misunderstanding this issue in a previous post, here it is again:

I did some more research and actually found the exact answer that I was looking for in this article:

DHS Spokeswoman Laura Keehner's comment:

While the Secure Fence Act has authorized more miles, “there is a difference between authorization and appropriations,” she said.

Hunter spokesman Joe Kaspar's response:

“Hunter believes laws are meant to be followed” and “the money is there.”

So you see...he does not know the difference between authorization and appropriations, that is where he is making his mistake.

The Protect America Act of 2007 (H.R.3356, S.2011), which the President signed the other day, allows for additional forms of electronic surveillance that was not previously allowed. With no funding attached. Does that mean that unless Congress passes specific funds for that, which they are not going to do this year, that Bush is not going to expand NSA’s surveillance duties? Of course not. They have an operating budget already and will direct personnel and equipment to tackle the duties. And this superseded the old laws which prohibited certain types of monitoring of foreigners.

There are numerous examples of such laws being passed and signed. The Secure Fence Act being but one.

H.R. 5441 is an APPROPRIATIONS act, not an authorization act, and so why doesn’t the president order his secretary of the Treasury to begin issuing the checks?

Don’t know...... I wonder is the committees have approved the plans as required?

They Appropriations Act for 2008 in both the Senate and House versions are calling for $1 billion with some 1/2 billion being held back. They have both passed a version but now needs to be reconciled before it can be finaled....

For something like the surveillance program, they already have the personnel in place. On the fence, you need money to pay the contractor for time and materials. You are comparing apples with oranges.

I kept looking to see if they had released that $950M and I finally found an article reporting they have not released all of it. According to the article, the House Homeland Security Appropriations committee finally released $425 million in late March and meetings were being held with landholders to discuss buying the land, which could take some time. But regardless, that still doesn't add up to Hunter's numbers.

Then I did more research and found that in June, Congressman Jerry Lewis tried to get the fence required under the Secure Fence Act fully funded, but the Dems voted it down. So no...it has not been fully funded, Congress is holding up at least half of it, so while there is more there than what I was aware of (and I was watching it closely), there is not $800M as Hunter states.

Which brings us back to the 2008 DoD Appropriations bill from late July discussed here which will complete the border funding required (just as I said). Congress is expected to address this when they return from vacation, per the article.

Bottom line, I may have missed the partial release, but I was right about the pending DoD Appropriations covering it and Hunter was wrong about the dollar figure available.

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