Political Quotes

“I want to commend my chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. David Obey], for the fine work he did in moving this bill to the floor. The gentleman and his staff do an incredible job and it is a pleasure and an education to work with the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4426, the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriation Bill for 1995. This is an important bill. It is not easy crafting a Foreign Operations bill in the 1990's. Foreign aid is never popular. And these are difficult economic times here in the United States. Many Americans feel, and feel quite legitimately, that our domestic needs must come first. And, of course, they will. That is why the amount appropriated in this bill is such a small percentage of Federal spending--less than 1 percent of the budget. That means we are spending 99 percent of our budget for domestic needs--as we should--and just 1 percent for aid. This 1 percent compares to the 10 percent of the budget that was spent on foreign aid back in the 1950's. So the trend for foreign aid is down, way down. This trend is manifested in this bill, which is $389 million below the President's request and $707 million less than the amount appropriated last year. Mr. Chairman, there are two priorities that make up the bulk of this bill. The first is aid to Israel and Egypt. The second is aid to the states of the Former Soviet Union. Both these priorities represent foreign policy triumphs.…”