Dana Rohrabacher: “Mr. Chairman, have no doubt about it, this amendment would gut the reform that the Republicans have brought to the…”

“Mr. Chairman, have no doubt about it, this amendment would gut the reform that the Republicans have brought to the foreign policy establishment of this country. The American people voted for change. We have come forward with a bold plan of reform, and what we have now is an attempt to derail that reform, to study it to death. In answer to some of the arguments that have been made, whether it is arms control or whether it is AID policy, or whether it is communications policy, these are not separate efforts. These are not things that operate and should operate independently of a global strategy. These are part and should be part and parcel of a global strategy, part of the same effort. This is what is behind our whole reform proposal to take arms control, AID decisions, and communications and put them into the State Department so that we can have what this country needs, and that is bold leadership on the part of the executive rather than what we have had in the last 10 years, which is quite often nothing more than an attempt by people who hold executive power to reach a consensus among independent agencies. The fact is that if we are going to be efficient in the post-cold war world we need to make sure that our organizational structure is more efficient, and is operating with decisive leadership, which is exactly what you cannot have when you have different agencies operating independently.”