through a lot of the commissions and says, “They can have the authority, but the money is going to be cut back.”
It’s such a minor amount that I don’t think that would happen, but right now every amount is being looked at
I would concur with the idea that you may want to raise some money, but you also may want to keep control among this Commission. If you have another subcommis-sion that controls the purse strings, you really dance to their tune, and then extending authority for this Commission almost would be useless.
Mr. MAYNES: I would suggest, Congressman, that you’re right on target Even though the amounts were small, it was not the easiest task for Senator DeConcini on the Senate side in the Appropriations Committee to assure that these funds were avail¬able.
I might also add that there was one Commissioner mentioned that we might want to pay immediate attention for fund-raising, and to the extent everyone concludes that there may be a couple of needs which you’ve already mentioned in the way of publica¬tions and videos that could provide a need, as it were, you might want not to have hearings and pass up the opportunity of the public focus that comes along with that for a fund-raising opportunity.
It seems to me like that would be an opportunity you would not want to miss, and to the extent that you’re looking to be able to show the Ukrainian community before you ask them for money that you have done something, I think the hearing in the com¬munity is, in fact, that proof. Ms. MAZURKEVICH: Right, definitely. That would be tied together, definitely. Mr. MAYNES: It becomes the proof.
Dr. KUROPAS: Based on what you say, Congressman, it seems that your message to the public members is that we’d better be thinking very soon about fundraising.
Congressman MICA: Absolutely. I knew a lot of people would say before we even discuss other issues, put that at the end of the list, which I gather you retyped and all last night. I knew it would be a concern, but I also know what’s going on right out there.
I left here to go to a Whip meeting, talking about budgets. We’re talking about looking to cut more money, and the Republicans are doing the same thing, and I think that it’s highly likely that every commission like this, not just this one-nobody is pick¬ing on the Ukraine-but every commission like this, anything that they can look at or we can look at in the next year has a chance to go under the cutting knife again, and we ought to think about that seriously.
On the other hand, and this is strictly up to the Commission-the staff mentioned this to me-there may be a desire on the part of the Commission to see us produce the report and then keep the Commission active and do follow-up work, and I advised them what I just told you: fine. My committee oversees it; the Senator is in the Senate. I don’t see any problem. When it’s free, we’re easy to please. I don’t see any problem with getting continued authority, but that would have to be with zero ap¬propriations.
Mr. MARCHISHIN: Okay. Is there any further discussion on Paragraph 5?
(No response)
Do you have any comment to add?