Harold Rogers: “I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman who preceded me is accurate. He is very…”

“I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman who preceded me is accurate. He is very on target. I noticed the President the other day requested or is going to request $600 million for South Africa, for building housing and development in South Africa. That would be twice as much money as we are requesting in this bill for the poorest parts of this Nation. It seems to me that if we are going to consider aid for nations such as South Africa, and I think we should consider it, we should be sure that we have taken care of at least the poorest parts of this country first. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2442 reauthorizing the Economic Development Administration and the Appalachian Regional Commission. I want to commend the authors of this legislation for working long and hard to craft an important bill which will open up the door to economic opportunity for the most severely economically distressed areas of our country. Mr. Chairman, the EDA and the ARC help those pockets of the Nation which struggle for economic improvement, but are hindered by much tougher obstacles to economic self-sufficiency and prosperity. Many of those pockets are in my district--eastern Kentucky--which remain economically distressed relative to the rest of the Nation.”