Elizabeth Furse: “I want to express my support for the funding levels in Chairman Obey's report language for child survival programs…”

“I want to express my support for the funding levels in Chairman Obey's report language for child survival programs, basic education and Vitamin A. UNICEF's ``State of the World's Children 1993'' report says some very important things about where our priorities should lie. I want to share one of its major statements: In the decade ahead, a clear opportunity exists to make the breakthrough against what might be called the last great obscenity--the needless malnutrition, disease, and illiteracy that still casts a shadow over the lives, and the futures, of the poorest quarter of the world's children. Mr. Chairman, our most important priority is our children. Right now, we are in the midst of voting on the fiscal year 1995 defense authorization. It contains funding for every exotic weapon system you could possibly think of and the most ironic thing about it will be the fact that we really have no enemy that those weapons are designed to kill. I do not mean that the United States has no enemies but they are not the ones that the defense budget will protect us against. The world's children, both here in the United States and abroad, need some of the resources that are being spent on weapon systems--to improve schools, decrease violence, create jobs, and housing. I look forward to the day that our national defense budget will address those real enemies.”