Benjamin Gilman: “despite the President's State of the Union promise to ``end the era of big government'', on Friday, April 12, President…”

“despite the President's State of the Union promise to ``end the era of big government'', on Friday, April 12, President Clinton vetoed H.R. 1561, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act. This compromise bill delivered on the President's pledge to reduce the size of Government through a flexible reorganization of the international affairs agencies. It was, regrettably, rejected by the administration as unacceptably restrictive. I am stunned by this assessment. Instead of working with the International Relations Committees to fulfill the mutual goals of reforming our international operations, the administration remained mute and unwilling to find a bipartisan approach. The administration's attempts to reinvent and reform Government, are merely hollow platitudes, with little creativity, or bipartisan support to sustain them. This is a great disappointment since we should be well on our way to organizing our international relations for the next century. The only thing this administration has reinvented are new excuses to maintain the status quo. Let me remind my colleagues that in January 1995, Secretary of State Warren Christopher proposed the idea to President Clinton to consolidate the foreign affairs agencies that proliferated during the cold war. He argued that consolidation would reduce duplication, cut the budget, and provide a firm new direction to U.S. foreign policy in this century. Secretary Christopher was right.…”