[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 28, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1394-S1395]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              AID'S INTERNATIONAL FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAM

   Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, about a month ago when we passed 
the last continuing resolution, I spoke about the damage a provision 
included in the CR by the House of Representatives would cause to our 
international family planning programs. Senator Hatfield, the chairman 
of the Appropriations Committee, also spoke at that time. We both 
expressed real concerns about what the House had done, and the effect 
it would have on the lives of millions of couples around the world 
especially women.
  We also pointed out that the House had essentially handed us a fait 
accompli, since it recessed immediately thereafter and our only 
alternative to passing what they sent us in the form they sent it was 
to close down the Federal Government again. We passed the CR under 
protest, and I have been very encouraged by the strong stand the 
chairman of the Appropriations Committee has taken on this issue. He 
has always been a strong opponent of abortion, but he has also 
supported family planning and has made the point as eloquently as 
anyone that the way to reduce the number of abortions is to give 
couples the means to avoid unwanted pregnancies.
  I am not going to repeat all that I said back then. Suffice it to say 
that as a result of the House action, millions of couples will be 
denied family planning services, including contraceptives, who want 
them, need them, and have no other access to them. It does not take a 
genius to realize that the result will be many more unwanted 
pregnancies, and many more abortions. In the countries where these 
family planning programs are carried out, abortion is often unsafe and 
the incidence of maternal death is alarmingly high.
  I cannot believe that was the intent of the authors of the House 
provision, but how they could have failed to anticipate that result is 
beyond me. I can only conclude that they do not want the U.S. 
Government to provide assistance to couples who want to limit their 
number of children, even though these people want the assistance and 
many of them live in countries where millions of people go hungry each 
day.
  A February 16, 1996, article in the Baltimore Sun made this same 
point. Not only does it discuss the steps AID Administrator Atwood has 
taken to improve efficiency at his agency, it notes that Congress 
rewarded him by cutting several hundreds of millions of dollars in 
AID's budget, cuts that I opposed. It cites the example of AID's family 
planning program, and points out that what the House has done will not 
only hurt mothers and infants, it will increase the very redtape 
Congress has been urging AID to cut.
  As the article indicates, once again ideology won out over common 
sense. That seems to be a recurring theme around here.
  Mr. President, I ask that the article be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

                [From the Baltimore Sun, Feb. 16, 1996]

            AID Learns That Good Deeds Do Not Go Unpunished

                            (By Sara Engram)

       When the Clinton Administration preached ``reinvention'' of 
     government the State Department's Agency for International 
     Development (AID) heeded the call.
       Along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, AID 
     became one of two federal ``reinvention laboratories'' where 
     all the talk about more efficient more effective and less 
     costly management turned into reality.
       AID has shed some 70 senior level positions, each paying 
     about $100,000 a year. It 

[[Page S1395]]
     has slimmed total staffing levels by 16 percent--from 10,800 people to 
     9,050. It has cut regulations by 55 percent, cut the time it 
     takes to award competitive contracts from a year to 150 days, 
     cut project-design time by 75 percent and overhauled its 
     program operations, procurement, accounting and budget 
     procedures.


                        Virtue is its own reward

       And what thanks does it get for doing more with less?
       A whopping budget cut, along with potentially devastating 
     restrictions on some programs.
       The saga of the 1996 AID budget is one of the grimmer tales 
     of the budget stand-off. The agency never expected an easy 
     ride, given the Republican-controlled Congress' zeal for 
     slashing the budget and the difficulty of defending aid to 
     other countries when we have plenty of poor, homeless and 
     hungry people right here at home.
       But the fact is that foreign aid is crucial to advancing 
     U.S. interests around the globe and to making the world a 
     safer place. From nurturing economic activity that raises 
     living standards and slows the rate of illegal immigration, 
     to helping emerging democracies set up a system of law, to 
     providing medical care and family-planning assistance to 
     countries with burgeoning birth rates and high rates of 
     infant and maternal mortality--the agency's programs plant 
     seeds that, eventually, can help forestall political unrest 
     or hostilities that spill over into wider wars.


                               tiny share

       Foreign aid is a tiny share of the budget--less than 3 
     percent (1.2%), and AID gets only a sixth of that. But a 
     recent poll showed an alarming number of Americans assumed 
     that the government spent more on foreign aid than on 
     Medicare.
       Under the compromise finally reached by the Congress and 
     the White House, the agency's budget will be cut 11 percent. 
     Since some aid programs, such as assistance to Egypt and 
     Israel, must hold relatively steady, other programs took an 
     especially hard hit.
       None, however, got the shabby treatment reserved for family 
     planning assistance. Those programs, a favorite target of a 
     small House group of zealous opponents of abortion and 
     family-planning, were cut 35 percent, a loss of more than 
     $200 million from 1995 funding levels. Even worse, these 
     opponents succeeded in requiring that no funds for 1996 be 
     spent before July 1--and then that the allocation be dribbled 
     out in 15 monthly increments, most of which would come, 
     absurdly, after the end of the year for which the money is 
     appropriated.
       Since the budget impasse had blocked expenditures after 
     October 1, that requirement creates a nine-month gap--an 
     ironic length--in U.S. aid for family-planning services for 
     some of the poorest families in the world. Clearly, the 
     restrictions are aimed at interrupting these programs, many 
     of which are administered by private, non-profit 
     organizations in countries receiving the aid.


                          defeat for families

       The victory for ideology is a clear defeat for tens of 
     thousands of families who, as a consequence, will experience 
     higher rates of unplanned pregnancies and more deaths among 
     mothers and infants. Pregnancy is a high-risk undertaking in 
     countries where nutrition is poor and health care is 
     unaccessible or primitive.
       It's also a defeat for efficient government--and an 
     illustration of how Congress can talk one game and play 
     another. Despite its calls for effective government, Congress 
     can't resist an ideological power play. What else explains a 
     requirement that must have been dreamed up in red-tape 
     heaven?
       Instead of one, clean transaction, we'll now have 15 checks 
     and 15 contracts for a program that is underfunded to begin 
     with. Reinventing government? The bureaucrats are hearing the 
     message. It's the ideologues who, it seems, couldn't care 
     less.

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