A look at us a hint of where to go next, what might becoming available and we cannot do research on the dhs side. What countries your family from . Vietnam, sir. I knew it. North or south beard beatnik salad. Great to see you. I served a little time over there. Thank you for serving. Thank you for keeping me free and safe all of those years. You are welcome. Urban s t standpoint i would say the biggest challenge always has been how do we transition from an effort into acquisition and it is a challenge that is not unique to just dhs. Dod has the same challenge and its been in existence a lot longer. Have you seen some instances where folks have overcome the challenge . Yes sir. When i say that the challenge it doesnt mean methane is sufficient. We have a lot of things that dhs as well. What i am trying to say is it is a challenge in the sense the way the budget is structured ill give you a specific example. My division has been working handinhand and even a lot of technology is in my op
Conservative. And if you look at the size of our budget deficit go back about six years budget deficit peaked out at 1. 4 trillion. And its been coming down since then. Its down by about 2 3. But we still have a big deficit by historical standards. And we need to continue to work on that. Three things, i think, we need to do. We need tax reform that lowers the rates, broadens the base and helps raise money for deficit reduction. We need entitlement reform that serves old people, poor people, frankly saves these programs for our kids. Find way to save money in the entitlement programs so theyll be around for our children and grandchildren. The last thing we need to do is look at everything we need to do and get a better result for less money. Everything we do. Including how to secure our border in a costeffective way. This is going to be a good hearing. Thanks very much. Thank you, senator. Youll enjoy our hearing next week talking about the 30year deficit and those projections and cert
What im going to do is flip that question and ask each of you to give us an idea or two about some things that dont work. And that we really shouldnt do that. What are some things you think that dont work . Especially in the day and age we had all the money in the world. We dont. We have a lot of debt and were going to get in more. What are some things we ought not do, you dont think they work. Theyre not worth the money . Mr. Hollis . Good question, sir. Im full of them. Thats my best one today, so. Im struggling with that one. In terms of because most of the stuff is, i think, that does not work is stuff that we actually stop doing. So one of the things we went through in our own office was to analyze across all of our offices which ones were most effective, most efficient and then reorganize our structure based on that. So we actually look at that pretty regularly year over year to see whats not working and then to either adjust our organization and our assets to rid ourselves of th
Of the future. Weve adopted that as a way forward. We interact quite a bit with leadership and Law Enforcement, and the stone Garden Program that Congress Gave us several years back after the department was created is a very useful tool for us and is very well thought of by state and local. Could you give me your assessment of Border Security in the indian reservation, for example. I dont want to single those out. With the reservation compared to others, areas on the northern border, would you say its equivalent, better, worse . Im not aware of any deficiencies we have specifically. How about with the park . Glacier National Park . Same. We have an ongoing working relationship to be present and understand their concerns as well as being present on the border and patrolling. So the need for additional tools and i dont want to put words in your mouth. Need for additional tools, youve got it with operation stone garden, with the park service relationships, memorandums, whatever . Correct,
In, i believe, five in between 2005 and 2008 and that certainly assisted Border Patrol in expeditiously constructioning hundreds of miles of fence along the southwest border. There were legal challenges brought to halt certain border projects. But when dhs would show Waiver Authority, the courts would dismiss those challenges. I will note it is not absolute. Besides the constitutional limitations, you cannot waive the constitution. Another thing is that it refers specifically to the construction of barriers and roads. There is certainly some question as to whether it would apply to tactical infrastructure that is not a barrier or a road. Like sensors or cameras. Dhs when it has exercised Waiver Authority to border projects, it has often mentioned things like radio towers and cameras in addition to the fence. But whether Waiver Authority could be used exclusively for a say, a project to install towers or sensors along a particular stretch of the border dhs has never done that and that w