Duncan Faircloth: “current law requires the Secretary of State to publish an annual report that tells the Congress how often foreign…”

“current law requires the Secretary of State to publish an annual report that tells the Congress how often foreign countries voted with the United States at the Union Nations. Unfortunately, this report leaves out a key statistic, and that is how much foreign aid we are giving to the countries that vote against us. This amendment requires the Secretary to include the amount of foreign aid that these nations receive and a side-by-side comparison of voting records and foreign aid appropriations. This amendment will assemble this important information in a convenient and easily accessed resource. It will assist those in the Congress and in the public in their assessments of the merits of American foreign aid programs. I believe that there is good reason to scrutinize these two statistics. The American taxpayers work hard for the money that flows to foreign countries through the Treasury. The American taxpayers are told that foreign aid encourages support for American aims and diplomatic initiatives. Analysis of the United Nations votes of foreign aid recipients, however, reveals the fallacy of this rationale; 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 $156 million in foreign aid in 1996.…”