Political Quotes

“Mr. President, at a time when many Americans are increasingly concerned with the situation in Afghanistan, I was interested in an investigative report on U.S. aid for Afghanistan in the August 2, 2010, issue of the Christian Science Monitor weekly magazine. The report describes several aspects of the U.S. Agency for International Development's approach to development in that country, and I want to take a minute to clarify what may be a misconception about the Congress's expectations. The article describes USAID's focus on the ``burn rate''--that is, how quickly aid funds are spent. With this as USAID's focus, the more money the President asks for, the more money Congress appropriates, the more money USAID has available to spend, and the faster USAID says it needs to spend it in order to satisfy Congress. The article gives examples of the mistakes and problems that have resulted from trying to spend too much, too fast, in an environment where security threats severely limit the ability of USAID to monitor the funds, where a large percentage of the population lives as though it were the 12th century, where corruption is pervasive, and where the Karzai Government is widely perceived as ineffective or worse. The article describes big-dollar contracts with foreign companies that are not familiar with Afghanistan, for projects that are hastily designed from the top down, are overly ambitious, and too often do not produce good results.…”