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--Continued -- (House of Representatives - June 21, 2007)

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Mrs. MUSGRAVE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Smith-Stupak amendment.

I believe women in developing nations, these poor women are not asking help to abort their children. They are asking for help with food, housing and medical care for them and their families. It costs roughly $5 to spray a house with the cheapest insecticide to protect entire families from being infected with malaria.

The drug Nevirapine reduces the risk of prenatal HIV infection by 50 percent. One dose is given to the mother and one to the baby, and these two doses only cost $5.

Mr. Chairman, I believe this is how our foreign aid dollars should be spent, saving lives, not destroying them. Most preventable child deaths are from malnutrition, diarrhea, pneumonia, infections of newborns and malaria.

The United States has contributed more than $1.5 billion in the last 5 years to treat almost 5 billion episodes of child diarrhea with lifesaving oral rehydration therapy, and we have reduced deaths from diarrheal disease by more than half since 1990.

These are the success stories of how U.S. tax dollars are saving lives, and we need to continue to preserve lives. The money in this bill should be spent on newborn care programs and not on destructive abortion procedures destroying the life of the child and harming women.

I believe we need to export lifesaving policy that provides poor women with the food, with the housing and the medicine that they need so desperately.

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Mrs. MUSGRAVE. Mr. Chairman, this debate has gotten very interesting. There are some of us in the Chamber, Mr. Chairman, that have been concerned about fiscal discipline for a long time. We have been called things like budget hawks. Mr. Chairman, we were willing to take on our own party on that issue and we were also willing to take on our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, because, Mr. Chairman, when I think about this debate tonight and I think about the national debt being over $8.8 trillion, you know, I would have to think that there are people around this Nation tonight watching this debate and wondering why in the world Congress, and there have been many mistakes in the past, why Congress can't get serious about the way we spend taxpayers' dollars.

My amendment would offer an across-the-board cut. And I know that has been criticized by my friends on the other side of the aisle, but, you know, sometimes an across-the-board cut makes a lot of sense. And I am interested to think about spending levels where we cannot cut 50 cents out of each $100 that we spend.

I offered an amendment that was not accepted in the unanimous consent agreement that would have highlighted one of the more egregious forms of waste and abuse of the funding in this bill, and this was an article in the Boston Globe that I read, and they broke a story last February about the former executive director of the Global Fund and how he used Global Fund dollars. I want to tell you what the Global Fund is supposed to do. It's an organization that is supposed to combat global diseases like AIDS and malaria and tuberculosis.

Let me tell you how he spent our American tax dollars. He spent between $91 and $930 a day for limousines in London and Paris and Washington and San Francisco, averaging almost $400 a day for limousines. He spent $1,695 for a dinner for 12 at the United States Senate Dining Room here at the Capitol. Then he spent $8,780 for a boat cruise on Lake Geneva in Switzerland; $8,436 for a dinner in Davos, Switzerland; and then they had champagne and expensive meals. I wonder if the American taxpayer thinks that this is frivolous nonsense. You know they do. They would be outraged to think that they get up, go to work every day, work for their children, work to pay for their home, work to buy the college education for those kids that they dream of, and people are spending their tax dollars like this.

You know, I think an across-the-board cut sounds great. I would like a larger one, but I'm asking for a modest half of 1 percent, 50 cents out of $100. You know, when you look at your children and you look at your grandchildren, Mr. Chairman, and you think about that debt, and I don't care who you want to blame it on, Republicans, Democrats, Republican Presidents, Democrat President, we at this time in history have an opportunity to be responsible with the American taxpayers' dollars and cut this increase in this budget from 9.5 percent to 9.

I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.

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Mrs. MUSGRAVE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to correct a statement I made. I referred to a cut.

My amendment would take a 9.5 percent increase in funding in this bill over the last one to a 9 percent increase.

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Mrs. MUSGRAVE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make it perfectly clear that if you had read the amendment you would see that no assistance to Israel is cut. We have common enemies, we have common values, and I am a strong supporter of Israel.

If the gentleman who just made the remarks would look at the amendment, he would see there are no cuts to Israel.

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Mrs. MUSGRAVE. Mr. Chairman, some people would not call it a hoax if we save 50 cents on every $100 dollars that we spend, that the hardworking taxpayers of this country have provided for us.

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Mrs. MUSGRAVE. Mr. Chairman, tonight I again am amazed that our President's numbers have been so highly esteemed by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. And I don't believe I've ever heard a debate where so
much Scripture was quoted by the folks that constantly talk about the separation of church and state. So it's been quite an amazing evening here.

When the American people see all this, perhaps their heads spin as we talk about all these things, and maybe they don't understand everything we say because we're in this political arena. We're serving in Congress. And they're working hard every day trying to provide for their families.

But I think what the American people would understand, Mr. Chairman, I have 2 quarters in this hand. This is 50 cents. In this other hand I have a dollar bill, a $100 bill. The American people know that government spends too much money. All I'm asking for in this amendment is for us not to spend this 50 cents.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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