Political Quotes

“I offer this amendment in order to increase the amount of humanitarian assistance that is available for the refugees in the Balkans. We have disagreements in many areas here, but one thing we all agree on and the American people are interested in is to provide humanitarian assistance to the refugees. With the passage of the Latham amendment we have some breathing room, some headroom in the foreign operations programs, and my amendment takes $67 million from the Latham amendment activity and adds it to the AID disaster assistance account in order to meet the emerging needs in Kosovo including the provision, and emphasizing the provision, of food. As my colleagues know, both the Obey amendments had a provision for $175,000 for additional humanitarian assistance, and Mr. Hall's amendment had $150 million for additional food. Neither of these prevailed; the amendment offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) did not pass, the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall) was not made in order. However, I want us to just stipulate to the fact that there is general agreement that more food is needed. Many of us, including the distinguished chairman of the full committee, were in the Balkans and we saw people waiting in line for hours for food. We saw little babies who had crossed the mountains and through the forests have only cold tea for 2 weeks of their very young lives. The refugee problem is a greater one than was anticipated.”