Alcee Hastings: “Mr. Chairman, I associate myself with the remarks of the chairman and the ranking member of the subcommittee, and I am…”

“Mr. Chairman, I associate myself with the remarks of the chairman and the ranking member of the subcommittee, and I am in opposition to the Burton amendment. As indicated, it would cut USAID's operating expenses, as the gentleman from Indiana has said, by $46-plus million to a level of $419 million in fiscal year 1997. The conference report on the fiscal year 1996-97 authorization bill passed by the House and the Senate, as has been pointed out by the subcommittee chair, proposed $465 million in fiscal year 1997, the same as recommended by H.R. 3540, the fiscal year 1997 foreign operations appropriations bill. Mr. Chairman, much about this bill I do not like, but a lot that I like about it is that the chairman and the ranking member and other members of the Committee on Appropriations have gone about in a forthright manner, trying to be as creative as possible in protecting some accounts that we did not protect on the authorizing side. In order to operate at even the $495 million request level in fiscal year 1997, USAID has announced it will have to lay off 200 U.S. direct-hire employees before the end of fiscal year 1996. In addition, 240 direct-hire employees will leave, or through attrition, for a total of 440, a reduction of 17 percent in 2 years. Sometimes when we are on the floor we do not put human faces on these things.”