Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Mr. Smith of New Jersey, for bringing this bill up today. I rise in support of the Global Food Security Act, H.R. 1567. This bill reflects almost 2 years of work between the Agriculture Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, both of which I serve on. This legislation is an important step in getting back to regular order and properly authorizing a program--which has essentially been on autopilot for the last 7 years--before funds are appropriated. An important program such as this needs to be reexamined by Congress and duly authorized so that changes that need to be made can be made and to stop the terrible pattern of just appropriating money for programs because the reauthorization is too difficult to work out. The legislation demonstrates that this body is doing what we were sent up here to do: make the tough decisions and stop the cycle of throwing good money after bad. H.R. 1567 authorizes previously unauthorized money that is no higher than what has been appropriated in the last 2 fiscal years. Furthermore, through the hard work of both the Agriculture and Foreign Affairs Committees, we have been able to eliminate duplicative spending and waste, strengthen congressional oversight while instituting no new spending, and most importantly, begin weaning these nations off of U.S. foreign aid by including the private sector, promoting economic growth, and opening markets for U.S. trade and investment instead of just aid.…”