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[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 76 (Tuesday, May 9, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S6303]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                                  AID

  Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I rise this morning as a member of the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee to discuss the content of a recent 
interoffice electronic memo from Sally Shelton, the Assistant 
Administrator for the Bureau of Global Programs, Bill Support and 
Research at the Agency for International Development [AID] regarding 
congressional plans to merge AID into the State Department and to cut 
the somewhat bloated foreign assistance budget. For the benefit of my 
colleagues who may not have seen the memo, dated May 3, let me quote it 
here:

       The Administrator spoke to InterAction yesterday * * *. The 
     Administrator would prefer that InterAction stay out of the 
     merger issue and there is indeed no consensus on their Board 
     as to what position to take. But some want to be involved--
     the Administrator reminded us of Dean Acheson's comment 
     ``Don't just do something, sit there!''
       Tony Lake is addressing InterAction tomorrow--he is pushing 
     the phrase ``backdoor isolationist'' to tar the anti-150 
     account Congressmen with * * *. Shalikashvili and Wm. Perry 
     had a good mtg with the Speaker on the 150 account * * * 
     though the news from the Senate is not so good * * * Sen. 
     Domenici is pushing for bigger cuts than had been anticipated 
     earlier.
       Jill Buckly reports that the Senate For. Rels. Comm. staff 
     was relatively uncooperative in discussions yesterday and 
     somewhat surprisingly the HIRC [House International Relations 
     Committee] staff was cooperative. The strategy is ``delay, 
     postpone, obfuscate, derail''--if we derail, we can kill the 
     merger. Larry Byrne met with Sen. Robb and got his support on 
     the merger though Robb is not committed, yet, to defend the 
     150 account budget levels. Official word is we don't care if 
     there is a State authorization bill this year.
       Larry B. announces that we are 62 percent through this 
     fiscal year and we have 38 percent of the dollar volume of 
     procurement actions completed; we need to do $1.9 billion in 
     the next 5 months * * *. There are large pockets of money in 
     the field and about $570 million in Global and ENI each. So 
     let's get moving * * *. Jim Bond called Larry Byrne * * * 
     then yelled at him about our obligation rate, said it 
     imperils our ability to argue we need more money * * *.

  Madam President, I am incensed by this memo and by the mind-set it 
manifests at AID. It seems clear to me that instead of looking for ways 
to work with Members of Congress to streamline its operations, cut 
waste and bloating, and accept the same kind of downsizing that the 
American people expect of every other agency of the Federal Government, 
AID has taken on as its first priority saving its own skin.
  There is nothing back-door isolationist about a desire to down-size 
AID and get rid of functions it carries out which are duplicative of 
those carried out by other agencies; it's a move that Secretary of 
State Christopher himself supported until recently overruled by the 
Vice President. At a time when we don't have enough money to take care 
of our own citizens and are consequently forced to rethink the funding 
levels in our domestic budget, to argue that we can't make similarly 
difficult cuts in our foreign aid budget is both disingenuous and 
unrealistic.
  While I am certainly not in favor of a full-scale gutting of foreign 
aid, there is no bureaucracy in this Government that in my estimation 
couldn't stand a healthy cut in its budget--AID among them. For those 
who might doubt that assertion, the following information is 
instructive. AID has requested $16 million in aid to Jordan so that it 
could ``attract more tourists to come to Jordan, enjoy their 
experience, and recommend Jordan to others.'' AID wants to pay $528,000 
to Vietnamese contractors who were not paid as a result of the Vietnam 
War, while at the same time hundreds of American contractors remain 
unpaid. AID has proposed giving the AFL-CIO $5 million to make home 
improvement loans to Sandanista labor union members in Nicaragua. AID 
has proposed giving $900,000 to the lobbying firm TransAfrica to 
develop linkages with South Africa. The grant would enable TransAfrica 
to buy a TV, VCR, camcorder and computers for its Washington, DC, 
lobbying office. These proposals are just some of the highly 
questionable ways in which AID allocates its funds.
  While speaking about funding, let me note that I am outraged by the 
suggestion in the memo that as the fiscal year draws to a close and AID 
has only ``38 percent of the dollar volume of procurement actions 
completed,'' that employees would be encouraged to get out there and 
spend, spend, spend so that their ability to argue we need more money 
is not imperiled. Statements such as that are a perfect example of 
bureaucratic thinking run amok, and illustrate to me precisely why 
their budget is in need of some substantial trimming.
  Madam President, policy statements coming from AID which note that 
they intend to work to delay and derail the legitimate work of this 
Congress for their own selfish needs strike me--and, I am sure, other 
Members--as blatantly improper. As a result of this memo, you can be 
sure that I will view anything AID has to say on reorganization or 
budget matters in the next few weeks with a very jaundiced eye, to put 
it very mildly.

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