Congressional Budget For The United States Government For Fiscal Year 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to support the Kerry/Lugar amendment that restores the full amount of the President's request for the international affairs budget.

The Budget Committee has recommended a cut of $15 billion out of $540 billion from total nondefense discretionary spending--a reduction of 2.8 percent. But it has recommended a $4 billion cut out of $53.8 billion from the international affairs account--a reduction of more than 7 percent.

The foreign affairs account, already relatively small in the overall budget, is being asked to carry more than double the percentage spending cut than the rest of nondefense discretionary spending.

Furthermore, the small investment in our overseas engagement is barely 1.5 percent of the entire proposed Federal budget and only 6.8 percent of the national security budget, which includes defense and homeland security. Even at this level of spending, the international affairs budget represents only 0.35 percent of GDP.

Our foreign affairs account is modest compared to what many other similarly wealthy nations spend on such programs.

As we take stock of America's image in the world, it is clear that we need to do more to improve the lives of the world's poor and help stabilize fragile governments and economies.

America's generosity and ability to help other countries are becoming more important to the effectiveness our foreign policy. In many cases our own security depends on the stability of far-flung places beyond our borders.

With this relatively small account, the international affairs budget funds programs that: reduce tensions with other nations through diplomacy and engagement; lift millions out of poverty through educational, health, and economic programs; bring clean water and sanitation to the world's poor; strengthen fragile democracies and weak states; help with humanitarian, refugee and peacekeeping needs; and send some of most talented Americans to work in some of the most difficult corners of the planet.

At a time when the need for such engagement is stark, we haven't made the investment we need in these critical foreign policy tools.

For example, America's lead development agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development, at one point in its history had more than 5,000 full time Foreign Service officers working on health, education, agricultural, and political development around the world.

Today, while engaged in a global war of ideas and values, USAID has just over 1,000 Foreign Service officers. Its budget in real dollars has been cut by almost a quarter from a high in the 1980s.

Similarly, the Peace Corps, one of our most successful programs at both sharing American values and assistance while also exposing our young people to the people and cultures of other worlds, has seen its budget in real dollars cut by almost 40 percent since its inception in 1967.

At a time when more failed states are in need of international peacekeeping missions, the United States is millions of dollars in arrears in U.N. peacekeeping dues.

This budget is an essential component of our national security. Defense Secretary Gates has said:

The problem is that the civil side of our government--the Foreign Service and foreign-policy side, including our aid for international development--[has] been systematically starved of resources for a quarter of a century or more . . . We have not provided the resources necessary, first of all, for our diplomacy around the world; and second, for communicating to the rest of the world what we are about and who we are as a people.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed,

The relatively small but important amount of money we do spend on foreign aid is in the best interests of the American people'' and ``promotes our national security and advances our interests and reflects our values.

The 2006 National Security Strategy, the Quadrennial Defense Review, and the 9/11 Commission all support increased investment in America's diplomatic and development capabilities.

As the Obama administration works to address multiple difficult and dangerous international problems, we have to fully fund the basic tools needed for such engagement.

Last year, 73 Senators, including 24 Republicans, voted for an amendment to restore the international affairs budget to the level requested by the President. The bipartisan message was clear we must continue to invest in our country's international affairs programs.

America's international affairs programs are as important foreign policy tools as diplomacy and defense. Let's make sure they are funded as such.

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