Duncan Faircloth: “I rise to introduce the Foreign Aid Reform Act of 1996. I would like to offer just a few brief remarks about this…”

“I rise to introduce the Foreign Aid Reform Act of 1996. I would like to offer just a few brief remarks about this legislation and its three component parts. First, it bars foreign aid to countries that vote against the United States more often than not in recorded votes at the United Nations. Second, this legislation creates a point of order to require the Congress to enact domestic appropriations bills before it considers foreign aid bills. Third, this bill prohibits foreign aid to be distributed by agencies that are essentially domestic, and it defines domestic agencies as those not primarily responsible for foreign affairs or national security. Mr. President, 64 percent of American foreign aid recipients voted against the United States more often than not in the 1995 session of the United Nations. India, for example, received $157 million of American taxpayers' money last year--it is the fifth largest recipient of American aid--and, yet, it voted against the United States in 83 percent of their U.N. votes. In fact, the nations that voted against us a majority of the time at the United Nations received a total of $3.1 billion in foreign aid in 1996. I find it incredible that we gave $3 billion to nations that refused to offer some consistent support to our diplomatic initiatives.”