[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 87 (Wednesday, May 24, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H5488-H5489]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              FOREIGN AID

  (Mrs. WALDHOLTZ asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. WALDHOLTZ. Mr. Speaker, speaking as a jazz fan, wait until next 
year. But today, we will continue debating the American Overseas Act. 
This act takes bold steps to downsize the Federal bureaucracy, and at 
the same time make the United States more responsive to a rapidly 
changing world.
  Critics of this bill have said that this is America turning inward, 
withdrawing from the rest of the world. In fact, however, this is 
America opening its eyes and squarely facing both our need to balance 
the budget and to respond to a very different and changing world. Our 
foreign affairs agencies were created during the cold war, when we had 
[[Page H5489]] to work to outbid the Soviet Union to buy friends 
abroad. Now, in a new post-cold-war world that is fundamentally 
different from the old one, our foreign affairs apparatus is too big 
and outdated.
  The American Overseas Interest Act will overhaul the foreign aid 
bureaucracy by merging three independent agencies into the State 
Department, eliminating outdated bureaucracies, and doing away with 
conflicting and divisive foreign policy. I urge my colleagues to vote 
for this bill, and vote for eliminating bureaucracy and streamlining 
foreign policy. We need foreign policy for the nineties, not for the 
fifties.

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