Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Yers 2010 And 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. POSEY. Mr. Chair, as every Member of the House knows, our country is confronted with an enormous deficit of almost $2 trillion this year alone, which is in addition to the existing mountain of national debt and a projected debt of $1.3 trillion for next year. At some point, this Congress needs to face the reality that you cannot continue to spend as though the bill will never come due.

The evening news is bleak with continuing housing foreclosures and the highest unemployment rate in decades. The Federal Reserve is exercising emergency lending powers. Foreign investors, including the government of China, are concerned about buying more U.S. government debt. But the majority in this body is living in a different world. The correct response would be for the government to live within its means, just as American families must do. For some reason, the leadership in Washington insists on going full-speed ahead in its binge spending, adding perks for public employees and billions of dollars in foreign aid spending while Americans continue to lose their jobs. Today's Foreign Relations Authorization Act is another case-in-point of Washington out of touch.

While American families are cutting back on their spending, this legislation would grant an arbitrary 35 percent increase in the State Department's basic salary and operations account, and at a time when more Americans are unemployed than at any time in the past 25 years this bill provides a 23 percent pay raise for Foreign Service Officers. In committee, Democrats voted down an amendment to cap the increases in the bill at the annualized rate of inflation. The bill also cuts the budget for the Office of the Inspector General--the one who is to keep a watchful eye on where Americans' tax dollars are spent.

The bill also increases funding for the United Nations (U.N.) by 30 percent over the current year's funding. In the past, any additional U.S. taxpayer funding has been tied to further reforms. This bill actually asks the U.N. for no reforms and provides it $100 million more for the peacekeeping activities than they asked for. I have cosponsored U.N. reform legislation and believe it is critical that we enact these reforms of an entity that has serious waste, fraud and abuse problems. As one of ninety cosponsors of H.R. 557, the United Nations Transparency, Accountability and Reform Act, I believe Congress should withhold funding to the U.N. unless some serious reforms are undertaken. Instead, today's bill rewards them with significant increases in funding. The bill also includes language affirming controversial international agreements for which the United States is not even a party, such as the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. This bill funds the Human Rights Council which includes the following nations as members of the council: Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, China and Cuba. This is ludicrous.

H.R. 2410 contains worrying language that would create a new office with a vague directive of promoting ``women's empowerment internationally.'' While I support ensuring that women are treated equitably, it is important to understand what this provision will lead to. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before the Foreign Affairs Committee stating that she would use the State Department to ``..... protect the rights of women, including their right to reproductive health care ..... [which] includes access to abortion.'' Thus, money will be spent within this office to promote abortion overseas, a policy which tens of millions of Americans object to.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this legislation and work for the good of those whom we represent by reining in the spending. Congress should authorize and appropriate funding sufficient for conducting a strong foreign policy, rather than increasing government salaries, expanding the size of government foreign aid programs, and rewarding the U.N. with more money than they asked for.

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