Hal Rogers: “No, I was not elected Secretary of State. I would not have the slightest idea how to be Secretary of State. What I was…”

“No, I was not elected Secretary of State. I would not have the slightest idea how to be Secretary of State. What I was elected to do, though, by my constituents at home and by my colleagues in the House is to be sure that we are spending our tax dollars wisely. That is what the Committee on Appropriations is supposed to do. It falls to my lot, as chairman of the subcommittee, to try to establish some discipline on the past extravagant spending by the U.N. for peacekeeping missions in the early 1990s, when we spread American troops and other nations' troops all around the world. Today we have several of these peacekeeping missions around the world, and we are paying 25 percent. I think we should have a say in how those tax dollars are spent and whether or not they should be spent in a given peacekeeping mission. Now, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is not correct. This bill does not prohibit peacekeeping missions in any country in the world.”