Cord Byrd: “I wish to commend the managers of the FY 1998 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill for their hard work in fashioning…”

“I wish to commend the managers of the FY 1998 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill for their hard work in fashioning this measure, and for getting it to the floor in a timely manner. The bill appropriates some $13,244,208,000 for the programs in FY 1998, is within its 602(b) Allocations, and is below the amount requested by the Administration by about $116 million. The committee in its report indicates that the time is arriving for a review of our priorities and programs in this area, a bottom up review and a new scrutiny over programs and the extent to which they serve U.S. interests abroad. I am pleased that the Committee has focused on the progress we are making in supporting the growth of democracy and free market economies in Eastern Europe, the former states of the Soviet Union, and Russia and the Ukraine. Certainly the payoff for helping stabilize and nurture the growth of solid democratic institutions is far preferable to the extreme expense of maintaining arms races, such as we had to do during the course of over four decades of cold war.”