Political Quotes

“I am pleased to support the Biden/Lugar amendment that restores the full amount of the President's request for the international affairs budget. While American military engagement overseas is at an all time high, the strength of our ideas, diplomacy, generosity, and values is at an all time low. For example, America's lead development agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development, at one point in its history had more than 5000 full time foreign service officers working on health, education, agricultural, and political development around the world. Yet today, while engaged in a global war of ideas and values, USAID has only 1000 foreign service officers. Its budget in real dollars has been cut by 27 percent from a high in the 1980s. Similarly, the Peace Corps, one of our most successful programs at both sharing American values and assistance while also exposing our young people to the peoples and cultures of other worlds, has seen its budget in real dollars cut by almost 40 percent since its inception in 1967. At a time when more and more failed states are in need of international peacekeeping missions, the United States is more than $700 million in arrears in U.N. peacekeeping dues. Tragically, we have all become more aware of what dangers failed states pose and what misery they bring to their own people.”