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[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 81 (Tuesday, May 16, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6709-S6712]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                       IS AMERICA GOING TO LEAD?

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, there is an important question hanging over 
us like Damocles' sword today. It will loom over us as we consider the 
budget. It will confront us directly as we debate the reorganization of 
our foreign affairs agencies. The question is ``Is America going to 
lead?''
  This is not a question that keeps people awake at night anymore. 
After all, 
[[Page S6710]] people ask, ``We won the cold war, didn't we? There is 
no longer any real threat to America's security, is there?''
  Mr. President, there have been few times in history when the United 
States can less afford to be complacent. The world today is anything 
but a predictable, peaceful place. While we are fortunate that the 
military threat to our security has receded, it is more true today than 
ever that American prosperity is linked to conditions in the rest of 
the world.
  Millions of American jobs depend upon persuading other countries to 
open their borders to U.S. exports, and helping them raise their 
incomes so they can afford to buy our exports. Ensuring that we have 
clean air and clean water depends upon international action to protect 
the environment. Keeping Americans healthy depends on joint action to 
fight the spread of infectious diseases in other countries. Imagine if 
we are unable to contain the recent outbreak of a deadly virus in 
Zaire--very quickly you would see Senators clamoring for more aid to 
stop it from reaching our shores.
  Stemming the flow of illegal immigrants and refugees to the United 
States depends on promoting democracy and economic development in the 
countries from which the refugees are fleeing. These are just a few 
examples of why we continue to have an enormous stake in what happens 
in the rest of the world.
  Fortunately, the United States, the only remaining superpower with 
the largest economy and the most powerful military, can influence what 
happens in the rest of the world.
  But influence is not automatic. It requires effort, and it costs 
money.
  Perhaps most important, the United States needs to maintain its 
leadership in and its financial contributions to the international 
organizations that make critical contributions to promoting peace, 
trade, and economic development. Organizations like the United Nations, 
the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the 
World Bank, to name a few. These organizations are the glue that holds 
our international system together. They may not always act in precisely 
the way we would like, but they are dedicated to spreading the values 
that Americans hold dear--freedom, democracy, free enterprise, and 
competition.
  The American people also want to help alleviate the suffering of 
people facing starvation or other calamities, like refugees fleeing 
genocide in Rwanda, or the
 hundreds of thousands of victims of landmines--the people who are 
injured and killed every 15 minutes around the clock, around the world, 
from the 80 to 100 million antipersonnel landmines spread in 60 to 65 
countries.

  Finally Mr. President, the polls show that most Americans believe we 
should help developing countries and countries making the transition 
from communism to democracy and market economics. It is through this 
aid that we fight poverty, that we stabilize population growth, that we 
educate people who have never known anything except tyranny in the 
basics of representative government, and that we encourage countries to 
open their economics to trade and competition.
  We do these things, not out of a sense of altruism, but because it is 
in our national interest. Yet, in the rush to reduce Federal spending, 
some are dismissing spending on international affairs as a luxury we 
cannot afford, or even a waste.
  The United States cannot pay these costs alone, but no one is asking 
us to. The United States now ranks 21st among donors in the percentage 
of national income that it devotes to development assistance. Twenty-
first. Right behind Ireland. We are not even the largest donor in terms 
of dollar amount anymore. Japan, which has a keen sense of what is in 
its national interest, has passed us. They passed the United States in 
this area. Do you think Japan is doing this out of a sense of altruism? 
Ha. They do it because they know it creates jobs and it helps their 
economy.
  Six years ago, when I became chairman of the Foreign Operation 
Subcommittee, the foreign operations budget was $14.6 billion. We cut 
that budget by 6.5 percent, not even taking into account inflation, 
while the remainder of the discretionary spending in the Federal budget 
increased by 4.8 percent. Those cuts were a calculated response to the 
end of the cold war. Foreign aid today is substantially less than it 
was during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Our entire foreign aid 
program, including funding for the Eximbank and foreign military 
financing and other activities that have as much to do with promoting 
U.S. exports as with helping other countries, today accounts for less 
than 1 percent of the total Federal budget.
  We must recognize that there is a limit to how far we can cut our 
budget for international affairs, and still maintain our leadership 
position in the world. Just when many people though U.S. influence was 
reaching new heights, we are seeing the ability of the United States to 
influence world events eroding.
  This budget proposal amounts to a classic example of penny-wise and 
pound-foolish. Our allies are scratching their heads, wondering why the 
United States, with the opportunity to exercise influence in the world 
more cheaply than ever before, is turning its back and walking away.
  We are inviting whoever else wants to--friend or foe--to step into 
the vacuum and pursue their interests at our expense.
  Mr. President, the United States stands as a beacon of liberty and 
hope for people throughout the world. But we should be more than a 
beacon. A beacon is passive. We should be proactive, reaching out to 
defend our interests and to help our less fortunate neighbors. We 
should continue to invest in the world. We should continue to lead.
  If there is going to be a leader for democracy, if there is going to 
be a leader for economic development, if there is going to be a leader 
for human rights, if there is going to be a leader setting the goal, as 
an American I prefer that it be our country. And as a U.S. Senator I 
know of no country better suited to do that.
  Mr. President, I want to say a few words about Republican proposals 
to reform the U.S. foreign affairs agencies. Senator Helms, the 
distinguished chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has 
launched a broad proposal to reform foreign policymaking in the Federal 
Government. This proposal includes provisions for completely 
restructuring the way we administer our foreign aid programs. Senator 
Helms asserts that U.S. foreign policymaking has become so 
decentralized that it no longer serves the national interest. He 
proposes to merge most foreign affairs functions into the Department of 
State.
  As the former chairman and now ranking Democrat on the Foreign 
Operations Subcommittee, I have had some opportunity to be involved in 
the U.S. Government's conduct of foreign policy, and I have some 
thoughts about Senator Helms' proposal.
  While I have long advocated better coordination among the executive 
branch agencies in foreign policymaking, I believe Senator Helms' 
proposal would result in U.S. national interests being less well, not 
better, served.
  Why is the Foreign Agricultural Service administered by the 
Department of Agriculture and not by the State Department? Because 
farmers know they can count on USDA to represent their interests better 
than the Department of State and all experiences have proven that.
  Why, 15 years ago, did we take the commercial function away from the 
State Department and create a Foreign Commercial Service in the 
Department of Commerce? It was because State had for years neglected 
export promotion, sacrificed export interests to its foreign policy 
priorities, and treated its commercial officers as second-class 
employees. It was because the American business community was clamoring 
for something better,
 knowing that if we could increase our exports we would increase jobs 
here in the United States.

  The reason we have separate foreign service bureaucracies is that 
many of our foreign policy interests are actually domestic policy 
interests that are best pursued abroad by technical experts from 
domestic policy agencies, not be foreign policy generalists from the 
State Department. I do not know about farmers from other States, but I 
can tell you that Vermont farmers are not at all anxious to see the 
State Department expand its influence over 
[[Page S6711]] U.S. foreign agricultural policy. They fear that 
shifting power from domestic agencies to the State Department will not 
strengthen representation of United States interests in United States 
policy but rather will strengthen representation of French interests 
and Argentine interests and Russian interests.
  Let me focus on the specific question of restructuring America's 
foreign assistance program. I have been advocating reform of our 
foreign aid program ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall, so I 
welcome this opportunity for discussion of this issue.
  Senator Helms says that our foreign aid program should further our 
national interests. I absolutely agree. I do not know of anyone who 
disagrees.
  But I do not agree with his definition of the problem. The problem is 
not that the Agency for International Development is ignoring America's 
national interests. The problem is that since 1961 when the Foreign 
Assistance Act was enacted, much of our foreign aid was allocated to 
winning allies in the fight against communism.
  All you had to do was say, ``I am anti-Communist, pro-American,'' no 
matter what kind of a dictator you were, money flowed to you.
  Billions went to right-wing dictatorships with little or not 
commitment to democracy or improving the living conditions of their 
people, or even allowing business competition. Much of that aid failed 
by the standards we apply today. But it is unfair and disingenuous to 
judge AID's effectiveness today against the failures of the past when 
our goals were fundamentally different.
  AID needs a new legislative mandate. We meet to get rid of cold war 
priorities and replace them with priorities for the 21st century.
  The Secretary of State has full authority under statute to give 
policy direction to AID, and the State Department influences AID's 
activities every day. If AID's projects deviate from State Department 
policy, it is not because AID is out of control, it is because the 
people at State are not paying enough attention to what AID is 
proposing to do.
  Senator Helms also does not give sufficient credit to the Clinton 
administration for its efforts to improve AID performance. Over the 
past 2 years, we have seen dramatic progress at the Agency for 
International Development and the Treasury and State Departments in 
redefining our foreign aid priorities and focusing resources where they 
can achieve the most in advancing U.S. interests abroad, in spite of 
the constraints of an obsolete Foreign Assistance Act.
  AID Administrator Brian Atwood has made
   extensive changes at AID. He initiated an agency-wide streamlining 
effort that has resulted in the closure of 27 missions and a reduction 
of 1,200 staff. He is installing state-of-the-art data processing 
systems that link headquarters in Washington with project officers in 
the field in real time. This will ensure that information available at 
one end of the management pipeline is also available at the other, 
increasing efficiency and improving decisionmaking.
  Mr. Atwood has decentralized decisionmaking so the people closest to 
problems have a full opportunity to design solutions. AID is improving 
its performance because, for the first time since the mid-1980's, it 
has hands-on leadership that is committed to making our foreign aid 
programs effective.
  Can AID improve its management performance further? Yes. But would 
the State Department do better? I doubt it. I believe that abolishing 
AID and asking regional assistant secretaries at the State Department 
to manage its functions would be a serious mistake. These assistant 
secretaries are chosen for their expertise in broad foreign policy. 
Many do not have experience managing money and programs. And they are 
overworked now trying to deal with the daily emergencies and 
complexities of our political relationships with countries in their 
regions.
  Even former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, a Republican 
whom I respect and whose counsel I have sought, expressed doubt about 
this proposal in his testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee 
on March 23. ``The State Department is not well suited, either by 
historical experience or current bureaucratic culture, to assume many 
of these new responsibilities,'' Secretary Eagleburger said. And he was 
trying to be supportive of the Helms proposal.
  I would put the matter a little less delicately: The State 
Department's specialty is making policy; it has never and probably 
never will manage programs well. Secretary Eagleburger offered the hope 
that, with every careful selection of Under Secretaries, it might do 
better. I am reluctant to trade a bureaucracy that is doing reasonably 
well and getting better at delivering foreign aid for one that has no 
competence on the outside chance that it might get better. If we 
disperse responsibility for foreign aid among assistant secretaries of 
State, I bet that we will start hearing more stories about misguided 
and failed projects, not fewer, and more questions about why we have 
foreign aid, not fewer.
  AID today is performing a wide array of tasks that enjoy overwhelming 
support among the American people:
  Every year, AID manages programs worth a billion dollars aimed at 
protecting the Earth's environment. Does protecting the Earth's 
forests, oceans, and atmosphere matter to us? Does it further our 
foreign policy interests? A century from now we are not going to have 
any foreign policy if we do not join with other countries today to 
protect the environment.
  Every year, AID manages hundreds of millions of dollars in 
international health programs. Is this money wasted? We might as well 
ask whether AIDS and tuberculosis are infectious.
  Every year, AID commits a large part of its budget to promoting free 
markets and democratic development in countries where the United States 
has important interests. This is not diplomacy. It is hands-on 
assistance that requires people with special expertise on the ground 
who can get the job done. Working with foreign governments and private 
organizations on the nuts and bolts of solving real problems. That is 
what AID does.
  Mr. President, we have a strong need to rewrite the Foreign 
Assistance Act to redefine the framework for foreign aid. AID can 
continue to downsize and improve its efficiency. But we should not 
abolish an agency that is aggressively adapting itself to the changed 
world we live in and to the shrinking foreign aid budget.
  Let me close with this, a personal observation.
  I have served here during the administrations of President Ford, 
President Reagan, President Bush, and President Clinton. Each one of 
those, each President, Republican and Democrat alike, has come to 
Members of the Congress, Republican and Democrat alike, and sought 
bipartisan support on foreign policy. We follow the dictates of Senator 
Vandenberg that politics end at the water's edge.
  We have had some major debates on this floor, and we have had major 
debates in the Cabinet room of the White House. But we have come 
together. We have observed a number of things, not the least of which 
is that the President of the United States is our chief foreign policy 
spokesperson.
  Throughout all of my years in the Senate, it has been an unwritten 
rule that, when the President of the United States is abroad, when he 
is making foreign policy or conducting foreign policy, he receives 
support at home. If we disagree with him, we wait until he gets home 
and we tell him so. I am concerned, when the President of the United 
States recently went abroad for meetings in Russia and Ukraine, that 
many would not wait until he came back but had to take to the floors of 
the House and the Senate to criticize what he was doing. I think that 
is wrong. We never did that with President Bush. We never did that with 
President Reagan. We never did that with President Carter. We never did 
that with President Ford. And we never did that before I was here, to 
my knowledge, with other Presidents. It is wrong. It gives the wrong 
signal. It does not mean that we passively agree with everything and 
anything that any President says. Of course not. We wait until he at 
least gets back to the country to tell him so. We do not undermine him 
or say things here in this country that almost guarantees that he 
cannot be successful in the other country.
  Frankly, Mr. President, the President of the United States and the 
[[Page S6712]] President of Russia ought to meet on a regular basis 
every year concerning the nuclear warheads of both sides. We should not 
set as a standard that the only time they can meet is if they come back 
with some enormous agreement. As a practical matter, that guarantees 
failure. They have to meet with or without agreement because there is 
too much at stake, and we ought to take the lessons of those Congresses 
in the past to at least let the President come home before we tell him 
we disagree with him. Let us not have foreign leaders when he is 
meeting with them see a cacophony of criticism coming, often from those 
who are not really fully informed of what is going on.
  Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleagues for allowing me to 
have this time.
  I yield the floor.
  

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