highly professional and done a great job working together and chairman edwards and ranking member want and want have been the same on milk on the a it reflects the longstanding bipartisan tradition of the committee and while the bills before us today may not be perfect last week and the way the rules committee is headed today with the homeland bill it appears that we just could be on a pathway that undermines the credibility and the very foundation of our committee each of us joined the committee for a very different reasons our committee's tradition has always been to operate in an open and bipartisan manner mr chairman since we seem to be veering from that straightforward approach that has been the hallmark of our committee and as we go forward today i'm interested both by way of communicating with the leadership in the rules committee i wonder if you would be willing to have the committee once we've gone through the foreign operations bill perhaps we could do the other bill that fast and fine but if not i wonder if you would be willing to recess the committee to make sure that we can those of us who have worked before the rules committee can make appearances at the rules committee there are role in drafting this bill this reflects our bipartisan priorities and is a better product as a result of her collaboration and i want to thank you the president's request for activities within the jurisdiction of recommendations to end the reliance on supplemental appropriations upfront fees me and transparent accounting of the resources needed to fund our foreign policy and national security interests this bill including diplomatic and development priorities is a cornerstone of u s national security the committee's recommendation for f y two thousand and ten includes four point seven billion for assistance to afghanistan pakistan and iraq to help stabilize strengthen and rebuild these critical countries in conjunction with funding in the two thousand and nine supplemental we fully fund our commitments to our allies and partners in the middle east including a total of two point seven seven five billion pursuant to the m o u between the united states and israel and our commitments to egypt and jordan it provides nine hundred eighty seven million to support counter narcotics and alternate development programs in mexico central america the caribbean basin colombia and peru the lack of sufficient capacity in our civilian agencies has resulted in an increased dependence on american troops to carry out diplomatic and development missions this is not in the interest of our military or our diplomatic and development professionals therefore this bill provides resources to hire train support  provide security for one thousand state department personnel and three hundred new usaid personnel this bill continues our commitment to global health and development assistance which increases belittle and addresses humanitarian crises around the world the committee continues robust funding for global health programs and provides a total of five point seven billion dollars for global aids activities which is one hundred million above the president's request and specifically and seven hundred million the global fund the manages amendment further increases funding for the global fund by fifty million and bilateral tuberculosis programs by fifty million the mark includes six hundred forty eight million for voluntary family planning services for families in the developing world and of this amount sixty million is nations population fund and want to make this very clear the bill does not change any provisions of law that restricts funding for abortion or otherwise conditions family planning assistance now while i personally continue to be committed to the repeal of the global gag rule i maintain current law at the request of our ranking member and out of consideration for a bipartisan bill the committee provides one billion to improve access to quality education and provide alternative where youth are often exposed to extremism two hundred million for higher education in light of increase shortages in many developing countries which are exacerbated by the global financial crisis the committee provides one billion dollars and agricultural development to preserve and protect our environment and refugee and disaster assistance to growing humanitarian needs including in pakistan and afghanistan finally with strong bipartisan interest in freezing the size and strength of the  corps i'm very pleased to provide four hundred fifty million dollars to the peace corps to jumpstart the present pledge to increase the number of volunteers a subcommittee continues to focus on improving oversight of the funds provided in this bill and i've worked very closely with ranking member granger to number of provisions aimed at improving accountability and oversight of the systems and operations funding furthermore the bill provides a total of one hundred forty six five hundred million dollars for the oversight of activities of the inspector general of the department of state and us as well as for special of who represents the left behind parent and requires the state department to maintain a database and such adoption it increases funding for bilateral tuberculosis programs by fifty million dollars and for the global fund by fifty million with reductions in the development assistance account of fifteen million and then the world bank account of eighty five million the amendment modifies the funding limitation on cash assistance for the west bank and g from two hundred million to one hundred fifty million to reflect the administration's request there is an adjustment to the s m s funding levels for colombia to sixty million to reflect our agreement with the minority it strikes report language changes corresponding to bill changes as well as report language on the following increasing funding for internet freedom encouraging independent media in pakistan supporting cooperative development programs that usaid supporting women and girls in refugee and disaster situations clarifying the implementation of the rapid response fund and describing the terminations some reductions to programs and accounts and this bill the manager's amendment contains one other provision related to iran many of us are deeply concerned that some foreign companies continue to provide material support to iran's refined petroleum resources whether by enabling iran's imports or contributing to iran's domestic production i've worked very closely with mark kirk and ranking member kay granger to develop language that closes  loop poling current law by preventing the export import bank of the united states from entering into any deals with foreign companies that significantly contribute to iran's refined petroleum resources i fully support this administration's continued diplomatic efforts to prevent iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability and this language is consistent with existing u s government policy of continuing status of diplomatic efforts to prevent iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and continue a previous reporting requirement bilateral and multilateral sanctions on iran now while this is not related to the ongoing post election events we would be remiss to not express solidarity with the protesters pursuing electoral freedom and consistent with our democratic  governing council of iran that the vote in fifty arabian cities were more than the number of people that lived in those cities and and and so i think that after the vote that we had on the iranian resolution last week which was nearly unanimous except for ron paul that this is the first substantive action by the congress to cut off funding for an iran gasoline project it is the precursor to the howard berman legislation which i understand now has one hundred ninety three co sponsors in the house and sixty three co sponsors in the senate that will establish a policy of what i believe is the most effective sanctions to stop a nuclear program iran and that is to look at their greatest greatest weakness reliance on foreign gasoline and our greatest strength the ability to cut that off and so i very much appreciate that because at least kirk referred to is exactly why we should not be doing this now the only hope the nominee how many regime have is to blame the revolution on the united states and this is going to be seen  as a chairman that is not the substance of this by way of reminding us all that this is a very tough bill and our public democrat and republican public think that we must be spending at what's going on just recently in maryland when we see about increasing the tax rates last year they had a shortfall and they had a very simple solution they would simply raise taxes on millionaires and a quarter percent market signals at every turn were jointly responsible for turning a panic into the worst depression of modern times as late as thirty eight after almost a different a decade of government i mean almost one out of five workers remain unemployed what the government dollars this takes the funding level back to last year's level this is about a twenty percent cut in this total of the bill but about one percent overall there's a straightforward and heartfelt  to give us all members of congress as guardians of the treasury people who were elected to do the best we could to preserve the prosperity this nation generations this is just a very straightforward  to offer us a chance to reduce about all spending in an area that all of our constituents will understand and that is essential my good friend and colleague frank wolf as pointed out we have to act african development bank these multilateral entities are able to support the large scale program for example in afghanistan the asian development bank has expanded access to water build schools the world bank has already expressed to the membership the fact that our public thinks that part of our money goes to foreign assistance to the gentleman's amendment is directed at the fact that if you look at the minimum standards eighteen and nineteen year old military recruits don't have any lobbyist standing up for them but they deserve and support third we provide two hundred million dollars for a guard and reserve construction this bill respects the fact there can be no more hologram in arlington cemetery a national cemetery in our overseas military cemetery the final resting place of america's heroes whether it is in the hills of way for the foreseeable future september eleventh two thousand and one the guard and reserve had more than one hundred in one thousand activation including the current level of about one hundred forty two thousand activation the joint chairman in supporting the additional two hundred million in the bill to address urgent unfunded requirements for the army national guard reserve forces of the army the marine corps and the air force and then regarding hundred two thousand and five account the president's budget request of seven have billion dollars the department the services have testified that it's going to be absolutely crucial for them to have this funding on october one two thousand nine in order to meet the september two thousand and eleven statutory deadline and i want to work with chairman edwards in the committee to make sure we get this bill done in that we have advanced appropriations and that's something said i had a bag packed i am suicidal yet they sent him home with bad and would keep them there for observation number one number two he had just so he went and literally  his wife his wife gave them to him he took them and then she found him fifteen minutes later in the bathroom with a gun to it and he pulled the trigger and he had been for months before that  hospital in springfield missouri which is not in my district with the same types of vital tendencies asking for help they sent him home with no meds whatsoever and if there is something that we can work on between now and the time we go to the floor to just put more stress on getting better psychiatric help at our veterans hospital to really be able to better identify p t s d and other injuries that are just debilitating these men and women who are serving and who have served back to back to us i mean obviously we know now there is a little bit more stay at home time but nonetheless he was turned away when he had a problem he knew what his problem was and it's just breaking my heart i raised that and i