Chris Smith: “Section 104 would provide an enormous amount of money, $130 million over 2 years. That is more than half a billion…”

“Section 104 would provide an enormous amount of money, $130 million over 2 years. That is more than half a billion dollars over 10 years, $60 million a year thereafter for the U.S. to become a part of UNESCO. The amendment of the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) to strike this new commitment of funds is prudent, and I believe it deserves support of this body. It seems to me that, before we make this enormous financial commitment, should not we know the cost benefit of this open-ended commitment? How vital is UNESCO vis-a-vis other commitments that we might make otherwise? We left, Mr. Chairman, in 1984, because of mismanagement, because of highly questionable policies especially in the realm of state control of the press. I would point out to my colleagues no recent hearings have been held on rejoining. What is it that we are buying into? We need, it seems to me, a generous amount of due diligence before any decision is made on this. I would just note parenthetically that, if we have a half a billion dollars over the next 10 years and it is in excess of that lying around, as chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I have some very, very worthy projects in the area of health care that I would like to dedicate that money to before we start throwing money at UNESCO. So I would hope that the amendment of the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) would get the support of this body.”