Patrick Leahy: “I have spent almost 30 years on this committee, cutting out areas where I believed we spent tax dollars frivolously.…”

“I have spent almost 30 years on this committee, cutting out areas where I believed we spent tax dollars frivolously. This, however, is talking about $5,000 overall throughout AID regarding hospitality for visiting dignitaries. I have had disagreements with various Directors of AID over the years on particular programs, but I am not going to come on the Senate floor and seek to micromanage AID to the extent that if they have visiting dignitaries and they are trying to move through a program, they would be unable to even have recorded music for that or pay a modest honorarium to a local singer or something like that to come in and entertain, much the same way other countries do with us. We are talking about for the whole world--$5,000 in a multimillion dollar budget. Frankly, I will give the Bush administration--as I have since I have been in the Senate the Ford administration, the Reagan administration, the first Bush administration, the Clinton administration, and now the Bush administration--the benefit of the doubt that out of this multibillion dollar budget, they can handle this $5,000. I will vote against the amendment, and I yield the remainder of my time. Amendment No. 1242 The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the Coburn amendment, numbered 1242.”