Joe Biden: “in June of this year I expressed my displeasure with the foreign operations appropriations bill when it came to the…”

“in June of this year I expressed my displeasure with the foreign operations appropriations bill when it came to the floor of the Senate. The overall funding level was too low, security assistant accounts were unfunded, burdensome conditions were placed on contributions to international organizations and an inadequate appropriation was made for debt relief. I'm pleased to find that the conference report has corrected some of these problems in a very satisfactory way. Appropriators have done the right thing on debt relief, by fully funding the amounts requested. As the wealthiest nation in the world, there is no excuse for us ignoring the plight of the world's poorest countries which are laboring under an untenable debt burden. I'm also relieved to see that the overall funding level of the bill comes far closer to the administration's request than the bill that the Senate passed in June. That bill, to my dismay, was $1.7 billion short of what was asked for. The conference report is a vast improvement. It is still some $200 million below what the executive branch has projected that it will need to undertake foreign operations. Obviously this is quite a large sum and there is a very serious need for Congress to reverse the trend of undercutting State Department and Agency for International Development programs. However the conference report brings the money requested and the money appropriated substantially closer.”