The Department Of State, Foreign Operations And Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 21, 2007)

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, the amendment I am offering would restore the funding level for international organizations provided in this bill to the fiscal year 2007 level.

The purpose of my amendme nt is twofold. First, it would help bring accountability to organizations that have demonstrated limited effectiveness. Second, this amendment would help control the out-of-control Federal deficit.

This keeps the funding level at last year's level, which was very reasonable. In fiscal year 2006, total interest payments on Treasury debt securities amounted to $405.9 billion, or about 14 percent of Federal outlays. That amounts to 1.7 percent of the U.S. GDP. Translated, that means 1.7 cents of every doll ar produced by Americans is used to pay interest on the Federal debt.

As a percentage of GDP, the Federal debt ratio is larger for the United States than it is in Finland, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. By any measure, it should be clear to any responsible fiscal steward that Congress needs to do more to control deficit spending to help reduce the Federal debt.

My amendment would take a small but much-needed step in that direction. With a little help from the majority par ty in Congress, we could reduce unnecessary spending and return more money to the American people who earned it in the first place.

Second, I wonder what our constituents would think if they knew they were being forced to pay millions for perpetual, never-ending funding increases for organizations such as the International Bureau for Weights and Measures, the International Coffee Association, the International Copper Study Group, the International Hydrographic Organization, the International Lead and Zi nc Study Group, the International Rubber Study Group, and the World Organization for Animal Health.

Given the tremendous amount of funding contained in the bill for the United Nations, I am particularly interested in encouraging that body to reexamine its spending habits so it can be more effective at fulfilling its mission.

As most would agree, the purpose of the United Nations is to help promote peace and security throughout the world. However, it has obviously failed miserably in that respect. Iran's nuclear weapons program is still chugging along at a rapid pace, threatening Israel and the entire region. Genocide persists in Sudan. All of the minds at the United Nations can't even agree on a definition for the word ``terrorism'' in an age where terrorism remains one of the biggest threats to humanity and civil ization.

Furthermore, despite the implicit purpose of the United Nations Human Rights Council to promote global human rights, this body has among its membership notorious human rights abusers such as Angola, China, Cuba, Egypt, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Iran serves as the Vice Chair of the U.N. Disarmament Commission, Syria is the Rapporteur of the U.N. Disarmament Commission, Zimbabwe is the Chair of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development, and Sudan serves on the Executive Committee of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

And if that wasn't enough, an examination of a ranked list of countries subject to the most U.N. condemnation for human rights violations in 2006 reveals Israel ranking first, having received 135 actions, nearly twice as many as Sudan, the next country listed, and more than the number of actions directed at Iran, China, Colombia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Syria combined. The United States ranks fourth on this list, having been subject to 38 actions. This indicates that the U nited Nations is more interested in condemning Israel and the United States than it is in horrendous human rights abusers throughout the world.

With that being said, the part of my amendment that should draw support from both sides of the aisle is the fact that my amendment doesn't cut a dollar from U.S. spending on international organizations. My amendment simply maintains the fiscal year 2007 level. By holding the line on spending, Congress can have another year to work on balancing the books and find ing other ways to fund the increased spending proposals contained in the underlying bill.

Mr. Chairman, at a time when Americans are being asked to do more with their budgets, it is only reasonable to expect the same out of those who benefit from generous American donations. That is why it should be clear to all of my colleagues why they should support my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate what my colleague has said. But these organizations do nothing to help the security of the United States. The U.N. is an ineffective and corrupt organization and our continuing to provide much of its funding im plicitly endorses that corruption and ineffectiveness. If we put this to a vote of the American people, they would say, fund nothing of the United Nations. Keeping this at level funding is the right thing to do.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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