Jeff Flake

The renewal of AGOA helps that platform, but we really have to reenergize and relook at the way we do trade agreement across the continent.

I think we can take much more--take a much more vigorous approach to our economic relationship with the continent.

I think we need to take much more seriously the potential growth and the potential economic opportunity.

China is eating our lunch here.

AGOA was created to provide incentives for African countries to strengthen the business climate, grow economies, and attract investment.

This hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs and Global Health Policy will come to order.

I see that as a growing trend, and it is a dangerous one to have so many lines off-budget.

$400,000 for a sculpture of an albino camel staring in the eye of a needle in Pakistan.

Thank you for the testimony.

Let me talk about OCO, Overseas Contingency Operation funding.

Really, when we are putting amounts off-budget, and continuing and growing OCO accounts, and we have in the base budget some of these programs, to justify that to our constituents, the taxpayers, is a bit tough.

The plan developed in 1990s that just do not apply today.

It is not a solution for everything, but it should help a lot.

I can not tell you how many small business entrepreneurs tell me when they go to hire for a position, that they can not find people that can pass the drug test.

This heroin epidemic is a big and growing problem as we have seen in the statistics.

I have long had an interest in African affairs and have had the opportunity as we spoke to spend some time there.

It is an honor now to serve as chairman of this subcommittee, and to be able to examine some of the pressing needs on the continent that sometimes receive too little attention.

This hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs and Global Health Policy will come to order.

There seems to be a perpetual focus from the outside on foreign assistance to Africa.

That is creative accounting, to put it mildly. Here is the reality. The Congressional Budget Office has taken a look at this and has analyzed the impact of passing the Smarter Sentencing Act. It is true there will be costs incurred mainly…

I was a proud sponsor of the so-called Gang of Eight bill and also the I-Squared bill.

This is not unprecedented.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for the testimony.

I like Secretary Carter's formulation of what this AUMF needs to do. It needs to provide the necessary flexibility to wage this campaign.

I think that it is overdue. I think it would have been useful to have that language or some kind of language from the administration early on.