Political Quotes

“My colleague from California (Mr. Royce) has been working at this issue for a very long time, and he has considerable knowledge and certainly a compassion and a deep understanding of these issues. There is far more to this than was explained in your presentation. There is an ongoing debate about how the United States ought to be assisting in the disasters and famines around the world. That debate came to a head last year in which it was decided that we ought to continue with the longstanding appeal for a Food for Peace program, with some modifications. My concern here with this particular amendment is that it may open the door for a continuation of that debate and ultimately lead to the demise of the P.L. 480 program, which has extraordinary political support as a result of the combination of American farmers, the merchant marine industry, as well as many NGOs around the Nation. I recognize that, in many places, it is necessary to have local purchases of food, and the chairman actually cited a couple of those examples. It turned out that the local purchase of food was accomplished through an existing program that USAID presently has, and that program is the international disaster assistance program, where money is available for the local purchase of food. The bottom line is that this $10 million really doesn't add anything that isn't already available in the current appropriation--in the current bill, so I would say let's not go down this road right now.…”