Jack Kingston: “I oppose this. I want to say to my friends who have offered it, I did support this budget on the House floor and did…”

“I oppose this. I want to say to my friends who have offered it, I did support this budget on the House floor and did support this 302(b) allocation in full committee. However, as I pointed out several times to my Democrat friends during the course of the debate today, the only budget that has passed is the Ryan budget. The President's budget failed in the Senate 97-0. The RSC budget fell on the House floor. The Congressional Black Caucus budget fell on the House floor. The Progressive Caucus budget fell on the House floor. Our job is to try to move this under the circumstances that we have and the restraints that we have. The bill before us represents a cut in discretionary money of 13.4 percent, which is one of the largest cuts that we will be considering in the 12 appropriation bills. I want to point out also that in terms of P.L. 480, that account alone has been cut 31 percent. And I met with the World Food Program three different times now and certainly expressed lots of concerns about America's role around the globe. We need to be engaged in the countries that we are engaged in. Sometimes this program is oversold as national security, which I believe it contributes to. It is not necessarily everything people want it to be in national security, but it is a program that keeps America engaged around the world and therefore promotes stability around the world. And when you have instability, there is a concern in terms of national security.…”