Senate Budget Committee Holds Hearing on FY2004 Budget for the State Department
FDCH TRANSCRIPTS
Congressional Hearings
Feb. 11, 2003
Senate Budget Committee Holds Hearing on FY2004 Budget for the State Department
MURRAY:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your very informative and candid discussion today.
I wanted to talk about foreign assistance programs andbecause I really think that the case needs to be made that each military threat facing our country is really first a foreign policy issue. And it's not enough to address the threat to this country solely through our capacity to respond militarily, but we need to do more on the foreign policy side as well.
And I was struck by a statement that Senator Lugar made last week at the Foreign Relations Committee. He said that the United States spends 8 cents on foreign policy for every dollar that goes to defense. And I am curious if you can share with us what you think might be the appropriate ratio with your background for these two functions.
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MURRAY:
Well, thank you for that.
I know that without question the war on terrorism is the top priority for this country. But that said, I am having a little bit of trouble with the president's budget and rhetoric on our assistance programs.
In your testimony you said this budget contains $4.7 billion for countries that have joined the war on terrorism. And I don't thinkthere's no question we should work with countries, as you've done, Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan. It's in our national interest, obviously.
But is this assistance really foreign assistance, helping people in the traditional sense of health or education or democracy? It seems to me that if I look at this, the budget really significantly redirects foreign assistance to the war on terror. So I'm kind of troubled by your assertion that the budget increases foreign assistance funding. By taking $4.7 billion away from other foreign assistance initiatives, aren't we really reducing our foreign assistance globally?