Date: 1992-06-30
Speaker: DE LA GARZA (democrat)
Chamber: Unknown

Mr. Chairman. I had not intended to speak on this issue. but the debate has ranged far astray of what the realities of the situation are. For example. we have had a discourse here about the budget and the deficit and the national debt. which is proper. but not in this forum at this time. Also that our committee. the Agriculture Committee. has split jurisdiction. Part of the Jurisdiction belongs in the Foreign Affairs Committee and the domestic part with the Agriculture Committee. That in itself has caused some problems. But the main thrust here is that reorganization. or reform. or restructure. is not obtained by cutting the amount. Just a meat ax approach is not going to do what some of our colleagues are complaining about. because we have complained about the same items. It has been the administration of the program and not the funds that should be in question at this point. But in behalf of agriculture. let me show that agriculture has not. has never been. is not the culprit in having an unbalanced budget. or in having a debt. or in having a deficit. I bring Members this chart. The red part shows the total budget of the United States of America. the taxpayers. S1.400.000.000.000. The little line that Members cannot see is how much goes to agricultural programs. Onehalf of 1 percent of the total budget goes to agriculture. So we are not the culprits if we have an unbalanced budget or if we have a debt or if we have a deficit. The most important part also. we have the pie chart which shows where the spending of the Department of Agriculture goes. All of this. more than 50 percent. the black. goes to nutrition programs in the United States of America. food stamps. school lunch. WIC. homeless. feeding the elderly. The red part. about 20 cents out of every dollar goes to agriculture programs. Again. this Is not the culprit for an unbalanced budget. or the debt. But this little blue line that Members cannot see. the tiny little blue line. that is Public Law 480. That is the foreign assistance part of the Department of Agriculture. That is what all of this eloquent demonstration is about. Two percent of the budget of the U.S.A. is what goes to foreign assistance. And I do not think that that amount merits this amount of concern. Yes. we should balance the budget. Yes. we should reduce expenditures. Yes. we should have reform. Yes. we should have restructuring. But we do not do it by cutting the funds. And there have been areas. Bangladesh is probably the best example of how Public Law 480 has worked. And it has worked in El Salvador. it has worked in Kenya. it -has worked in Zambia. it has worked in the Horn of Africa. not only the grant food. but also the concessional sales. The problem is that now and then one goes astray. But the secret of all secrets that is not a secret is we do not send it to them. They request it. Through my office come every month the leaders. ag--ricultural leaders or ministers from the foreign countries requesting the Public Law 480 donation. and concessional sales. We do not say this is what we give. Now. there have been some exceptions. The flour in Egypt. for example. that came for another reason. There is a vast. there is a vast movement from many of my colleagues here to have valueadded products that you manufacture here in the United States and you send it to the other countries. We just had it in our committee. and there was an amendment offered by the ranking Republican member to dedicate 35 percent to valueadded. And this is what his colleagues are not debating and are concerned about. I argued against imposing the valueadded without some kind of restriction because we want the jobs here.