Political Quotes

“I'm prepared to close, and I would first like to address some of the issues that were brought up during this discussion. As it relates to the idea of having exchanges with people from foreign countries, that's why we have a State Department. And, in fact, the State Department has programs that do just that. The Open World Leadership Center is a program run by the Library of Congress. If this program were so important to national security and relations with foreign countries, then the State Department would pick it up, but they haven't chosen to do that because they already do programs that are similar. But they probably do it a lot more effectively, and it's a lot more coordinated with the State Department because it's run out of the State Department. So now you have a separate, duplicative program that Congress, both Republican and Democrat Members, for 3 years now has been saying, It's time for you to go. And I go back again to the June 2009 committee hearing. The committee recommendation begins a phaseout of Legislative Branch financial support for the Open World program. That was the committee recommendation in 2009. Republicans weren't running the House back then. That was under Democratic leadership. And of course in 2010, the chairman at the time, Ms. Wasserman Schultz from the opposing party said: Our subcommittee's stated goal has been that we would begin to wean you off your reliance on Legislative Branch funding.…”